Rape verdicts may encourage other victims

L-R: Warren Graham Hales, Peter Mana McNamara, and two other men who have name suppression were yesterday found guilty of rape. Picture / Fotopress

Victims of past rapes may be encouraged to come forward following the conviction yesterday of four men for the gang-rape of a 20-year-old woman at Mt Maunganui 16 years ago, a sexual abuse expert says.

Auckland Sexual Abuse Health Foundation spokeswoman Caroline Day said today other victims of historical sexual abuse may have memories brought up by the case that played out for two weeks at the High Court in Wellington.

"I think women that may have buried that experience or partly forgotten about it, can be reconnected with it and have a desire to come forward and do something about it," she told National Radio.

The jury of eight women and four men yesterday found the four men guilty of gang-rape and abducting the woman.

Peter Mana McNamara, a 46-year-old Mt Maunganui businessman, Warren Graham Hales, a 40-year-old fireman of Papamoa and two men aged 47 and 53 -- whose names are still suppressed -- were remanded in custody for sentencing on August 5.

The two unnamed men were also found guilty of unlawful sexual violation and the 47-year-old was convicted of a second rape charge. Both men were acquitted of sexually violating the woman with an object.

The woman, who now lives Australia with her husband and three children, lodged a complaint with police in April 2004 while on holiday in New Zealand.

She told the court the men lured her into a hut on the pretext of having a lunch date with the 47-year-old, but once there she was bound and raped. The men had maintained the woman had orchestrated consensual group sex and denied restraining her.

With no DNA evidence, the trial came down to the victim's word against that of the accused.

Historical rape cases raised issues for defence lawyers, New Zealand Bar Association president Peter Winter said today.

"It raises issues of memory, and reliability of memory," he told National Radio.

"It raises issues of what witnesses might have been available at the time to assist the defence case but are no longer available because they have disappeared or possibly died."

Whether the accused was capable of remembering events or healthy enough to stand trial also had to be considered, Mr Winter said.

Dr Felicity Goodyear-Smith, a sexual abuse expert at the University of Auckland, said today there were dangers with historical rape cases, "because of the extreme difficulty presented in defending allegations that relate to the past."

Other countries had a statute of limitations, she said. "For instance, most of the states in the United States have a statute of limitations generally of about one to five years and after that you can't press charges."

University of Auckland senior criminal law lecturer Scott Optican said many sexual cases involved only the victim's word against that of the accused.

"In the end it may come down to a contest of credibility of who one believes and that's not uncommon in the criminal justice system," he told National Radio.

In New Zealand the defence could make a motion at the beginning of a trial that an accused would not get a fair trial and that was then assessed by judges on a case-by-case basis.

"Even without a statute of limitations there have been numerous historical sexual assault cases dismissed before trial because the judge has assessed it wouldn't be fair. There are others that have gone to trial.

"Many sexual assault cases are the complainant's word against the defendant ... that's true whether it happened 16 years ago, six years ago or six months ago."

- NZPA