A mentally challenged man has accused a lawyer questioning him of making his brain shut down.
The 34-year-old was being cross-examined in the High Court at Rotorua today where Leneith Moeke, 36, and Gene Karauria, 29, are on trial on a slew of charges relating to kidnapping and mistreating the man, who is described as a vulnerable adult, over a period of time in 2015 and 2016. His name is suppressed.
The Eastern Bay of Plenty pair denied the charges when the trial began on Monday. Then Moeke pleaded guilty to a separate charge of assaulting a child between March 214 and September 2015 but denied another count of assaulting him using a broom.
Moeke's lawyer, Gene Tomlinson, spent today questioning the alleged victim via video link about claims he had made against them, pinpointing differences between what he had said in two taped interviews and in his court evidence.
Pressing him about his assertion that he had been hit with a whitebait pole outside the man said he had also been hit with it while being forced to clean the kitchen floor on his hands and knees.
Asked why he hadn't said this in his DVD interviews the man said he had missed it out - as he had other attacks he had talked about in his evidence.
Challenged that he was making things up, the man demanded to know why he would do that.
"Why are you putting these questions to me?" he demanded of Mr Tomlinson. "It's very confusing."
Questioned further, he told the lawyer he was making his brain shut down.
Asked why he thought he had passed out for five minutes after one alleged attack, the man said that was how long it took people to pass out.
He was adamant his rib had been broken by Moeke, not others who had attacked him away from the property.
In her opening address Crown prosecutor Hayley Sheridan described the man as having the mental age and capabilities of a child and lacking the life skills to care for himself.
Justice Rebecca Edwards has allowed the man frequent breaks and adjourned the trial early today, telling the jury he had become fatigued.
The trial is continuing.
