By RNZ
Warning: This story contains content some may find disturbing.
The lawyer for a man accused of more than 30 charges of rape and sexual assault has questioned the memory of a complainant.
John Hope Muchirahondo is appearing in the High Court at Christchurch on 22 charges of sexual violation by rape, nine of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and one of not providing access to a cellphone.
The charges relate to 15 complainants between 2009 and 2021.
A police interview with a sexual assault complainant was played to the jury on Monday, and the court heard from the complainant.
The woman described meeting Muchirahondo at a bar during a night out drinking in central Christchurch in 2020.
She went on to have more drinks with him and others who were with him and felt “completely inebriated” after drinking something she had been offered.
Muchariohondo drove her back to his place, she said.
“I remember saying to him I need to go home and he said, ‘You’re too drunk to go home’; he goes, ‘We’ll go to my place’,” she said.
The complainant said she blacked out at his place and woke up at one point to find him raping her.
“I remember looking up at him and wondering what was happening and why we were having sex.”
She was “super confused” and said Muchirahondo was not someone she had considered having sex with or would choose to have sex with.
The day after she described feeling very hungover and groggy, and believed she had been drugged.
“I knew something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t remember exactly what had happened. I was still under the influence of whatever I had been given the night before,” she said.
The complainant said she understood the gravity of what had happened to her when she talked about it with her friend days later.
Defence lawyer Kathy Basire questioned her memory of the night.
“You would agree that you know yourself that your memory still isn’t 100% with you?” Basire said.
The complainant said that although some details were blurry and she conceded there were things she had forgotten, she knew she did not have consensual sex.
The trial is set down for eight weeks before Justice Lisa Preston and a 12-person jury.
It comes after case numbers spiked in May, June, July and again in September.