Rape-victim's story 'not entirely believed'

Acquittal on some charges in a pack rape trial showed the victim's story was not entirely believed and four men jailed over the 1989 incident at Mt Maunganui should be retried, the Court of Appeal was told yesterday.

Mt Maunganui businessman Peter McNamara, Papamoa fireman Warren Hales and two men whose identities remain suppressed, were convicted last July of abducting and raping the then 20-year-old woman.

The unnamed men were also convicted of unlawful sexual connection and one was found guilty of a second rape. Both were acquitted of sexual violation with an object, the details of which are also suppressed.

McNamara's lawyer, Bruce Squires, QC, said the Crown's case had relied solely on the now 37-year-old woman's testimony.

"The very same issues the jury must have considered, and which persuaded them to convict on some counts, had the opposite effect on the counts they acquitted on," he told the three-judge bench. "If there is a sense of unease about it, that ought to be enough to overturn it."

But Justice William Young said it did not seem likely the jury picked and chose which evidence to believe.

"We are reluctant to believe the jury got their verdicts by throwing darts at a board."

The men have appealed against conviction and all but Hales are appealing against their sentences, which range from seven to 8 years.

The trial focused on an incident in a hut to where the woman claims she was lured on a lunchtime date. She claims she was bound, raped, forced to perform oral sex and brutally violated with an object.

The men maintained it was consensual group sex.

- NZPA