Judge throws out police recruit rape case

A police recruit cleared of rape after a judge decided his alleged victim was an unreliable witness says the case has stained his reputation.

Mark James Tulloch, 31, walked free after the decision by Justice Ronald Young in the High Court at Wellington today.

His accuser, a solo-mother of three, had alleged she was raped at her suburban Whitby house in April last year.

She yesterday denied Mr Tulloch's lawyer's claim that she made up the complaint to win back a former lover who iss also a police officer.

After being cleared, Mr Tulloch said he was now looking towards police to follow up on the "false" charge that turned the last year of his life into hell.

"Now I would like to see her...prosecuted to the full extent of the law," he said.

He said the allegation had stained his reputation and would continue to affect his life and work.

Mr Tulloch said having to repeatedly explain he didn't do it to friends and family was "absolutely shocking".

He said he was not given name suppression, was suspended from police college after the allegation was made.

He was also suspended from the territorial army.

Though the case was thrown out, Justice Young told jurors their time had not been wasted.

"Unless we had all come here to hold this case we would not have found this out," he said.

The case

Mr Tulloch and the complainant met on the website www.NZDating.co.nz, moving from chatting online, to cellphone messages, finally meeting in person several hours before the alleged rape.

During the two days of evidence before Justice Young's decision today Mr Tulloch's lawyer, Mike Antunovic argued that the woman had made a series of other unsubstantiated complaints to police.

They included one against her current partner for assaulting her and molesting her daughter, two other rape complaints and of a $14,000 jewellery theft by a former flatmate.

"Is not a bit of a pattern is starting to emerge - that when you get angry at someone, you make a false complaint about them?" he asked her.

He also questioned her over how she managed to see the "smirk on his face" and identify his tattoos - when the alleged rape happened in the dark.

"You have been caught outright lying," he told her.

Mr Antunovic also asked her about whether she had told a former flatmate she was seeking media attention after alleging a number of policemen in Foxton had raped her in May last year.

The woman had driven, drunk, to visit her children who had been taken away from her. After her arrest, she asked the names of police officers in the station.

"You [told your flatmate] you wanted everyone's names there, so you could go to the media and be `bigger than Louise Nicholas'," the lawyer said.

"You said you would have the jury eating out of the palm of your hand."

Whenever questioned about conflicting details she had given police during the investigation and at various points in the trial, she frequently repeated herself.

- NZPA