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They say Mitchell took the woman without her consent from Great North Rd as she walked home after a night out with friends.
Mitchell is the man who drove her more than 20km to a deserted quarry at Riverhead, they said, and Mitchell is the man she saw standing over her with a bat-like weapon when she woke, bloodied and beaten in the dark quarry.
Crown prosecutor Kirsten Lummis this morning gave her closing address to the jury, summing up the police case against Mitchell.
The trial, before Justice Sally Fitzgerald is in its third week at the High Court at Auckland.
"The Crown case has not changed," she said.
"I said to you in opening, Mr Mitchell has a dark side."
Power and control
Lummis said Mitchell wanted to "dominate young women and show power and control".
He showed that the night of February 26 last year when he kidnapped the 23-year-old in Grey Lynn.
Lummis said Mitchell was cruising in his car that night, his appearance as an older male making him "someone you feel safe with".
He targeted the 23-year-old and she got into his car.
"That took her on a trip to Riverhead," Lummis said.
"His intention was to sexually dominate her and make her perform for him."
When the woman refused to comply, Mitchell got angry.
He struck her repeatedly with a weapon, causing serious injuries to her head and wrist.
"When he struck her he intended to cause her serious harm."
Lummis said the womanhad been out with friends in Ponsonby celebrating the annual Pride Parade and unfortunately was heavily intoxicated.
"It's not good, but an obvious part of Kiwi culture, drinking to excess," Lummis said.
"She's not in a good way."
Lummis took the jury back through extensive CCTV footage captured on Great North Rd that showed the victim walking along, clearly affected by alcohol and using her phone.
She said the woman may have been trying to flag down a taxi, and that could have been why Mitchell targeted her.
"Maybe there was an arrangement to take her home?" Lummis said.
"Given her known alcohol levels, which you heard from a toxicologist were pretty significant, it's not hard to imagine her lying back, having a bit of a sleep.
"Whatever the case, Mr Mitchell would have become aware just how affected by alcohol she was, what an easy target she was - and that may have emboldened Mr Mitchell to take her further."
Lummis told the jury that the victim was likely unconscious when she got to Riverhead.
She has no memory of getting there, getting out of the car.
But from "piecing together snippets" from what she did remember of the night, a picture emerged of what happened at the quarry.
The attack at Riverhead
"He has had time to put on a mask, he has had time to find his weapon of choice," Lummis said.
The victim had been hit before she woke to find her attacker standing above her.
She remembers feeling her head bleeding as she woke, lying on her back in the gravel at the quarry.
"She comes to, she's naked, she's bleeding … he's issuing a command to turn around, but she doesn't want to comply.
"She is not complying so he uses more violence, perhaps needing the weapon. Punches alone are not going to do it."
Lummis suggested the weapon was a pool cue owned by Mitchell.
No DNA was found on the cue at all, not even Mitchell's.
The shape of the cue was consistent with the victim's injuries.
Lummis said "considerable force" would have been used.
"You don't have to be sure what the weapon was but you do have to be sure Mr Mitchell meant serious harm.
"Three strikes shows an intention to cause serious harm."
Lummis said the jury had to be satisfied that Mitchell intended to have a sexual connection with the victim.
She said there was "clear evidence" of this given the victim woke up in only her underwear.
"Why else, but a sexual motive, would the dress come off?" Lummis posed.
The victim earlier told the jury she "knew what he wanted to do to me" and she "didn't want to let him".
She begged Mitchell "please, no no no" but that did not stop him, said Lummis.
The woman managed to get away from Mitchell and call police.
Four strands of evidence
A major investigation was launched and Mitchell was arrested 12 days later after a car believed to be his was captured on a CCTV camera near where the victim was last seen, and at the quarry.
Lummis said the CCTV footage was one of four strands of evidence the Crown was relying on to prove Mitchell was the Riverhead quarry kidnapper.
Cellphone polling showing Mitchell's phone near where the woman was kidnapped and in West Auckland was the second strand.
Third, a glove found at the quarry had Mitchell's DNA on and in it.
And fourth, tyre tread marks at the scene of the alleged attack matched Mitchell's car.
CCTV also showed Mitchell washing and water blasting his car the morning after the attack.
Mitchell accepted that was his car, but denies the offending in its entirety.
Lummis said the cellphone polling data was accurate and could be relied on as evidence.
She said the evidence was "compelling" and proved Mitchell was at Riverhead at the time of the attack.
Lummis told the jury that the CCTV footage was also proof that Mitchell was the attacker - there was no doubt for the police that the car captured on Great North Rd near where the victim was last seen belonged to Mitchell.
"The timings fit and the Crown says that you can be confident it is Mr Mitchell's car," she said.
"The third item the Crown says is compelling is the DNA on the gloves. It's likely the gloves were left behind accidentally.
"Whatever the reason, those gloves were left behind and the Crown says you can be confident they were the offender's gloves, and Mr Mitchell's DNA was found."
The gloves and the car
Mitchell earlier conceded that the DNA on the gloves was his - but it came from him trying them on in a shop rather than him being at the scene.
He claims he did not buy the gloves, that he left them in the store as they did not fit his requirements and that someone else - the real attacker - must have purchased them and left them at the attack scene.
"The idea that the DNA came from trying on gloves in The Warehouse is fanciful; made up to try and fit with the evidence to give an explanation of why his DNA was found at the scene," said Lummis.
She said no other DNA was found on the gloves and had they been purchased by another person after being tried on and left in the shop by Mitchell, it was almost impossible there would be no trace.
"That never happened," Lummis said.
"You can dismiss that as a possibility. Mr Mitchell purchased those gloves."
Lummis said nothing in Mitchell's car linked the victim to the vehicle, but that was easily explained because Mitchell was not arrested and his car not seized until almost two weeks after the attack.
"There's been ample time to clean the car and dispose of any items that may have been present," Lummis told the jury.
She said items Mitchell was known to have, including a chrome tow bar cover, were missing when police seized the car which suggested Mitchell "made sure nothing incriminating could be found".
Lummis also invited the jury to think hard about how the car doors' child locks were on when the car was taken by police.
Lummis said that proved Mitchell "left home with the intention of doing some mischief that evening".
Mitchell's evidence 'a moveable feast' of implausibility
Lummis turned to Mitchell's evidence.
He took the stand yesterday in his own defence.
She said if Mitchell was to be believed, he "had to be one of the unluckiest men in Auckland".
"The one pair of gloves that he happened to try on, happened to be the one pair of gloves that ended up bang in the middle of a crime scene," she said.
She said his excuses and explanations around his car, CCTV footage and cellphone records were "a moveable feast".
"You might have thought at times he struggled to give a straight answer … got creative with his answers … which seems to add a level of implausibility.
The Crown says he's lying to you - that he lied to police and he's lied to you in court.
"You might think that Mr Mitchell has tried to fabricate his evidence to fit with information gathered along the way.
"When he thought he was on shaky ground, tried to distance himself from what he'd said previously."
Lummis said it was up to the jury to decide what evidence they decide and reject - but she invited them to go back to the Crown case for the facts.
She said Mitchell had "little" going on in his life at the time of the offending.
She said that may have resulted in "a need to go out" on the night of the Riverhead quarry attack and take the victim.
"A need to try and find some excitement," Lummis said.
She concluded her address by saying there was "plenty" of evidence for the jury to find Mitchell guilty on "each and every count".
Defence lawyer Mark Ryan is set to make his closing address to the jury this afternoon.
Tomorrow morning Justice Fitzgerald will sum up both sides of the case and send the jury to deliberate.
