NZ backpacker gang raped near Buckingham Palace, court told

Photo / www.britainonview.com

A New Zealand backpacker was gang raped near Buckingham Palace last year, a court has been told.

The 20-year-old woman was on a bus after partying with friends when three men approached, offering her a drink, Britain's Daily Mail reported.

She accepted and after getting off at Trafalgar Square, accompanied them to St James's Park, near the palace.

Prosecutor Peter Glenser told London, Southwark Crown Court, the woman was then violently assaulted and robbed by the trio.

"The defendants subjected her to a series of serious sexual assaults and robbed her of her property."

The court was told 21-year-old Acar Ismail had confessed to the August 25 attack and claimed to have been the ring leader.

On trial are Dimitri McKenzie-Saunders and Callem Fearnehough, both aged 21, who have denied three charges of rape, one of assault by penetration and one of robbery.

Ismail threatened to kill the woman if she told anyone what had happened, the court was told.

She managed to escape after giving them a false PIN number for her bank card and approached a security guard who was stationed at a barrier for help.

Mr Glenser said one of the men, believed to be McKenzie-Saunders, followed the woman and sat at the barrier saying he "could not run away and that it was his fault".

Mr Glenser said forensic samples linked both Ismail and Fearnehough to the attack.

"The absence of positive results in relation to McKenzie-Saunders does not exclude the possibility that he, too, had had intercourse with the woman."

When interviewed by police McKenzie-Saunders claimed he was `just being stupid' when he sat at the barrier.

Both he and Fearnehough told police any sexual contact with the woman was consensual, Mr Glenser said.

- NZPA