Rape accuser tells court of police sex talk

The woman who has made historical rape allegations against a high-ranking police officer says she suffered unwanted sexual remarks and innuendo from other officers at the Rotorua police station where she worked.

A 44-year-old high-ranking police officer is charged with raping her in 1984, while she was a probationary constable at the Rotorua police station.

Under cross-examination by defence counsel Philip Morgan, QC, the woman recounted other incidents of unwanted sexual attention, from other officers.

She said during one incident a police officer took out his penis and placed it on a table in front of people sitting in the police canteen. Another woman gave her a cloth to place over it. As she stood to put the cloth down, she said a second officer grabbed her between the legs. She said she elbowed him in the face.

"His response to that was to grab me by my hair, drag my face down to the seat level and yell in my face, telling me words to the effect of, I should not have done that for him and that my life now was going to be very difficult at work."

She said she left the canteen in tears, and after speaking to other female officers, they decided there was nothing they could do about it.

On another occasion she said she was working with the same officer who had placed his penis on the table. As they walked across a park, the officer suggested she pull down her pants so they could have sex.

As they neared the roadside, she said only if he pulled his down first - he did - and she said she shone her torch on him so passing cars could see him.

She said she spoke about the incident to other officers as a "joke", but it was also to let people know about his behaviour.

She said she felt she could not complain about the officer's behaviour formally, because it could have been detrimental to her career.

Police approached her last year in relation to another case and she told them about the alleged rape by the high-ranking officer, which is alleged to have happened at a birthday party in 1984. She said she told police in confidence to let them know what the officer was allegedly capable of.

Former police officer Anthony Fox, who worked with the woman in Rotorua, told the court he spoke to the woman after the party in 1984.

She told him that at the party she had got drunk, gone to bed and during the night the accused had come in and "shagged her".

Mr Fox, a fraud investigator, said he never did anything with the information, but last year he contacted police about it.