Too scared to attend court

Greg Burnside, pictured with his dad. Photo / Janna Dixon

A Waikato dairy farmer has walked free from court, after his alleged rape victim was so intimidated by the accused's father that she refused to give evidence.

The Hamilton mother-of-four said she had been raped by 41-year-old Gregory Noel Burnside - who called himself "Houndman" online - after she chatted with him on the NZDating.com internet site and agreed to meet him.

Burnside was also charged with raping another woman he met online but a jury acquitted him of that charge. This came after the Hamilton woman wrote to the judge saying she was too scared to attend court.

Judge Robert Spear said the intimidation by David Burnside, the accused's father, was "untoward and reprehensible".

Twice, Burnside snr admitted approaching the woman outside court and photographing her. Another time he shut a courtroom door on her, saying: "I'm not holding the door open for low-lifes."

In a letter to the court, the woman said she had complained to police of being "attacked" six times, but said police only warned the man.

"This effectively gave the man permission to attack me because he knows there are NO consequences for his actions," she wrote. "These attacks have become very violent. I am a solo parent with four children. I can't afford to get hurt again because of these people."

The woman said she had complained to the Independent Police Complaints Authority.

But Burnside snr denied physically assaulting the woman - and the judge accepted that. "While the accused's father clearly behaved aggressively and in an intimidating way towards her on occasions, I have serious reservations as to whether there was any actual physical assault," Judge Spear found.

Gregory Burnside was alleged to have met the two women on the internet dating sites then, in November 2007, lured them separately to his home and raped them.

He had shown no photo of himself online - just a picture of a truck and the assurance that he was looking for long-term commitment. But after first meeting the women in restaurants or the like, by the second date he was ready to invite them home where they alleged the attacks occurred.

The jury acquitted him of the charges related to the first victim at Hamilton District Court in July, but the verdict was suppressed until this week. The judge said the first victim had lacked credibility.

Judge Spear has since ruled that it would be unfair on Burnside to delay his trial, on 12 counts of rape, kidnapping and indecent assault of the Hamilton woman, any longer - so he threw out all the charges.

Judge Spear believed the Hamilton woman may have exaggerated her claims of intimidation and there was no guarantee that she would turn up to give evidence later.

Specific details of the alleged crimes have been suppressed, but Burnside admitted to sexual acts at his home, west of Huntly. He said the acts had been consensual.

In an interview last year with the Herald on Sunday, the woman's account was different. "A lot of things happened that night," she recalled. "We were talking and I made it clear to him that I wasn't going to sleep with him. I went outside and had a cigarette ... I came back in and things got nasty."

Greg Burnside has told the Herald on Sunday that he had been set up. Dating sites were "meat markets", he said, where one could find anything one was looking for sexually.

This week, he declined to be interviewed but sent a text welcoming the judge's ruling.