Judge rules out sex trial charges

A man accused of sex offences against eight women has had two counts of stupefying dismissed by a High Court judge.

Neville Victor Chubb, a 28-year-old drainlayer, was facing seven charges of rape, one of unlawful sexual connection, two of stupefying, one of administering a class B drug, Ecstasy, and three of indecent assault, involving eight women.

But following an application by defence counsel Ron Mansfield and Steve Bonnar in the High Court at Auckland, Justice Colin Nicholson yesterday ruled there was insufficient evidence to support the stupefying charges.

In his opening address for the defence, Mr Mansfield took issue with the Crown's earlier remarks that the eight women were all drugged, drunk or dead to the world and therefore not in any state to consent to sex.

Mr Mansfield said it was absurd for the charges to be lumped together. They all had to be dealt with separately.

Mr Mansfield said some of the sexual activity did not take place and in other cases it was consensual.

He said the woman involved in the Ecstasy charge knew she was being supplied the drug.

The Crown has alleged that drug or alcohol use meant the women did not have the capacity to consent to sex with Chubb.

Mr Mansfield said the defence accepted from the outset that if a woman was asleep or unconscious through taking drugs or alcohol, she could not consent.

It was the defence case that "none of the complainants was so drugged, so drunk or so dead to the world that they lacked the capacity to consent".

Mr Mansfield said the taking of alcohol and drugs did not take away a woman's capacity to consent.

"Anyone who makes a decision under the influence of alcohol or drugs is accountable for that decision. They can't say they were drunk and didn't consent."

In the morning they might not recall the event too clearly and might regret what they had done to the extent that they might "want to bite their arm off".

Nevertheless, they consented.