Jury to decide on ‘forced’ stabbing

The jury deciding the case of an 18-year-old who police say stabbed and raped a young Vietnamese girl before throwing her over a fence and leaving her for dead will retire today to consider their verdicts.

David Mamea was 16 when police say he stabbed and raped the 14-year-old girl, biting her so hard in the attack that 16 months later she still bears his bite mark on the inside of her thigh.

The High Court at Auckland has heard the girl narrowly missed death with 10 stab wounds to her neck, back and upper body all inflicted in a continuous attack that started in the early hours of New Year's Eve 2004.

Mamea has pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary of the girl's home and being in the house carrying a knife, but he has pleaded not guilty to her attempted murder, rape and being party to a rape by a man police have been unable to identify.

He claims he was drunk on December 31, 2004.

He had got into a fight and been taken home by his brothers but went out again.

He says while he was out four men, one carrying a gun, picked him up and took him to the girl's house where they forced him to stab her once and tried to make him rape her but he refused.

He says he was then forced to throw her over the back fence of her home into a reserve.

In his closing to the jury yesterday Crown Prosecutor Steven Haszard said Mamea's explanation was "crude and unsophisticated", concocted to suit the evidence he believed police had against him.

Police say they found his palm prints in blood on her sheets; two of his pubic hairs, one soaked in blood; his saliva on the outside of her jeans, which corresponded with bite marks; and his blood mixed with saliva in a drop outside.

The girl claimed she had bitten him and tasted blood during the attack.

Mamea was discovered by police who were carrying out a search warrant on his home in relation to a stolen car.

They found a handbag belonging to the girl's mother that had been stolen in a burglary months before the attack.

"What's the chance of them [the men] going to the very house that this man and his friends had earlier burgled? It's nonsense, complete nonsense," Mr Haszard said.

The girl had completed a computer sketch of her alleged attacker and given police detailed descriptions of clothing. Police recovered from Mamea's home black and white Nike shoes and track pants like those described by the girl.

Mamea's lawyer, Mary Tuilotolava, said Mamea admitted stabbing her once, biting her and carrying her to put her over the fence but he had not raped her and he was scared for his own safety at the time.

She said the girl's account was mixed and in the circumstances she could not have had a clear memory.

"If you factor in the distress that the victim would have suffered from the very first moment, you might end up with the view that the sequence of events was questionable," Ms Tuilotolava said.

"It's your worst nightmare, isn't it?

"She is an admirable young lady. She had the courage to fight back. I'm saying to you her focus was on herself, not on her attacker."

Nike shoes like the ones described were common, she said, and the size was too small for her client. She said the jury needed to put aside emotion and be clinical.

"You need to open your mind to the possibility that this happened to David Mamea."

Justice Graham Lang will sum up the case to the jury this morning before they retire to consider their verdicts.