Raveen Saily guilty of raping teen at Arataki Community Centre public changing rooms

The Arataki Community Centre public changing rooms where a 16-year-old was raped and violated by Raveen Saily on Labour Day 2021.

WARNING: This article deals with rape and sexual violation and may be distressing for some readers.

“Any possible belief ... that [she] consented is so far from reasonable it can only be a product of his violent sexual fantasies and his frankly warped attitudes around sexual consent”.

That’s what prosecutor Sunny Teki-Clark told the jury as he concluded the Crown’s case against Raveen Saily, who was on trial in the Tauranga District Court this week for the rape and sexual violation of a 16-year-old girl.

The girl said she had been forced to perform sexual acts after Saily threatened her with a knife. He then went on to rape and violate her.

Now the jury has found Saily guilty on all six charges, which included indecent assault, rape, and sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection.

The 23-year-old told the court all of the sexual activity, at the Arataki Community Centre public changing rooms in 2021, had been consensual. He said for every sexual actthe teen had said “yes”.

But, the jury’s unanimous verdicts went against that assertion.

The victim wiped tears away as the verdicts were delivered and glared at Saily as he was taken into custody.

‘Utterly fanciful’ explanation of events

In his closing address yesterday Teki-Clark said Saily’s account was implausible.

He said while the teen and Saily had been discussing sexual matters over Snapchat before their planned meet-up, that did not amount to consent.

The teen had never had sex before and all her sexual experience had been “second-hand from talking to friends”.

“It is utterly fanciful to think that she would, on the very first occasion that she’s met up with a boy alone, be willing to engage in this type of sexual behaviour,” he told the jury.

“That she would be willing to have a knife used on her, that she would be willing to be slapped about the face and buttocks, being degraded verbally, having her hair pulled, forced, gagging, vomiting, vaginal and anal sex in a public changing room without the use of protection, it just simply isn’t plausible.”

The Arataki Community Centre public changing room.

He said the teen’s evidence had been reliable and credible, and she had been clear that she had only gone along with the sexual acts because she was fearful of violence.

“What is completely believable is that [she] was a naive 16-year-old girl who met up with an older boy whom she had met online. She missed the danger signs that were there.”

The teen had frozen and hadn’t dared to run away, having been threatened with the knife by the then-20-year-old.

“All of the evidence is consistent at every layer,” Teki-Clark said.

He said Saily’s evidence had been “frankly absurd”.

He suggested the jury consider Saily’s use of an anonymous Snapchat account to communicate with the teenage girls.

He pointed to the way Saily behaved when he was introduced to the victim by her friend, at Bayfair, before the pair connected on Snapchat.

“Right off the bat he’s making totally inappropriate comments about her ‘boobs’,” Teki-Clark said, quoting a term used by witnesses in evidence.

Saily admitted commenting on the girl’s breasts - he said it was a “compliment”, and hadn’t been inappropriate in the context because he’d been formally introduced to her.

Teki-Clark also told the jury to take note of changes to Saily’s story.

When interviewed by police Saily said he didn’t have a knife, or if he did have one on him that day, he didn’t use it in the sexual encounter.

However, in court he admitted pulling out the knife, but said he put it away when the girl said she didn’t like it.

The knife the teen says she was threatened with before she was raped and sexually violated. Raveen Saily said he did get the knife out during sex, but didn't threaten her with it. He said it was part of "knife play" which he thought the 16-year-old wanted to try.

Saily said in evidence that he held it up, but it was the teen’s own movement that caused her breast to come into contact with the blade, causing the abrasion a doctor photographed after allegations were reported.

Ultimately the Crown case was that Saily was a “liar”.

“The Crown case is he’s lying because he’s guilty,” Teki-Clark said.

‘Immediately regretted it’

Saily’s lawyer Bill Nabney said in his closing address that the teen willingly entered into sexual contact and then almost immediately regretted it.

“And why wouldn’t she when you look at the circumstances and the place in which it occurred,” he said.

But this didn’t mean that, at the time, there hadn’t been consent.

Nabney said it was clear that immediately after Saily and the teen met they had begun to send sexual messages over Snapchat.

He said it hadn’t just been “everyday” sexual matters, the pair had been “talking about kinky knife stuff” and “BDSM”.

Nabney said when he questioned her during cross-examination, the teen clearly understood what that was, and no one had forced her to continue Snapchat discussions.

She could have blocked Saily, but she didn’t, and he said it had been implausible of her to suggest that she hadn’t expected any sexual contact when she met up with Saily.

She had sent him intimate images and the pair had also discussed the teen giving Saily oral sex.

“She agreed that he had asked her if she would give him a ‘blow job’ and she said ‘yes she would’.”

Nabney said the teen’s evidence had been that she felt pressured to agree while having these conversations.

“But she was at home, and we know that with Snapchat all you’ve got to do is unfriend or block someone, and that’s it ... ”

Nabney said there was no CCTV to show the alleged grabbing of the arm which the teen said had happened.

The Crown said that happened at a point in time when they weren’t within view of a camera.

But Nabney said the CCTV footage available showed no coercion or force, only the teen following Saily into the changing room.

“She claims that she was threatened to go in, but I suggest there’s nothing in her demeanour to indicate that she didn’t want to go in there, that she was forced to go in there, she walks in there.”

He said the teen had good reasons to make up the allegations of rape - she was trying to cover her tracks to avoid getting in trouble with her strict parents.

There was a dispute over whether Saily blocked the teen after the sexual activity, or whether the teen had removed him.

The Crown said it wouldn’t have made sense for the girl to block him, as they’d spent considerable time trying to track down his account to report him to police, and Teki-Clark said he’d blocked the teen to cover try and get away with his offending.

But Nabney said the teen had her own reasons for removing him from her Snapchat account - she didn’t want her parents to see the sexual messages the pair had exchanged.

Judge Bill Lawson sent the jury to deliberate about 3.30pm on Thursday.

In summing up, he said the key issue for the jury to consider on all charges was consent.

“As the lawyers have told you it’s important to consider this issue of consent at the time of the [sexual] connection,” he said.

Consent had to be true consent, freely given.

“A person does not consent to sexual activity because he or she does not protest or offer physical resistance,” Judge Lawson said.

“A person does not consent to sexual activity if he or she allows the activity because of force applied to her, or the threat - whether it be expressed or implied - of force being applied to her; or, the fear of the application of force.”

Judge Lawson convicted Saily on the six charges and remanded him in custody for sentencing on December 16.

Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.