Trial begins in Nelson for man accused of raping sleeping partner, kidnapping her

A five-day trial has started in the Nelson District Court for a man accused of raping and kidnapping his former partner. Photo / Tracy Neal

A man accused of raping his sleeping partner, and then later raping her again on a road trip, says the sex was consensual both times.

The man, whose name is suppressed, is on trial in the Nelson District Court on charges of rape and kidnapping, following the pair’s brief relationship in 2021.

The Crown set out the case today at today’s opening after a jury of eight women and four men were empanelled.

Prosecutor Ian Murray alleged the woman did not consent on either occasion which led to charges of rape, and that she had at one point been detained against her will, leading to the charge of kidnapping - an umbrella term used to describe someone detained against their will.

The defence, in setting out its position, said it would focus on the man’s view that the woman consented to sexual activity and that he neither detained her, or intended for her to be confined.

The woman had come to New Zealand from China and was in temporary, casual employment when she met the man around June 2021, with whom she was then in a brief relationship.

Murray said it was July 1 that year that she alleged the first rape occurred. She had been asleep when she said the defendant began having sex with her. She woke up and made it clear she did not want to have sex with him.

“She tried to push him away and get him to stop, but he didn’t,” Murray alleged.

He argued it “goes without saying” that when someone is asleep they do not, and cannot, consent, and that once the complainant was awake she made it clear she did not want to have sex with the defendant.

“For these reasons, the Crown says it must have been obvious what he was doing was not consented to,” Murray said.

Despite this, the pair continued in a relationship and then the defendant moved to the North Island. The complainant then got a job in the fishing industry and met someone else.

Murray said they became close friends, while the woman remained in contact with the defendant.

In November 2021 the man was in Tauranga and invited the woman to visit, from where they planned a road trip back down to the South Island.

Murray said the man booked a cabin for the ferry crossing of Cook Strait, and while the complainant slept he accessed her phone, went through her messages and as a result, became “angry and jealous”.

He said the man had already acknowledged he was wrong in gaining access to the complainant’s phone.

The pair then headed to Kaikōura, and arranged accommodation in separate beds as the relationship was said to have been over by then, as a result of what the man had seen on the woman’s phone.

During the course of the evening, the pair argued. The woman said she was tired and wanted to go to sleep which was when the Crown alleged the second rape occurred.

Murray alleged the man got into her bed, slapped her, and forced himself on her at which point she froze.

The Crown alleged he had exercised power, control and dominance over the woman, who afterwards had asked to return to Motueka where she was living at the time, but that her request had been ignored.

The man is alleged to have then started to drive to Christchurch, but the woman made it clear that was not where she wanted to go and called the police who then intervened.

Murray said the kidnapping charge arose as a result of the man allegedly having detained the woman, or having hindered her freedom.

The woman was taken to a location in Kaikōura and the man continued on his journey. He was charged the following year and a protection order was put in place.

He has since pleaded guilty to a charge of breaching the order and attempting to pervert the course of justice by contacting the woman and asking her to withdraw her complaint.

His lawyer Lee Lee Heah said today her client knew it was “very poor behaviour” on his part but he had taken responsibility and had pleaded guilty to charges that arose after the events of which he was accused.

She asked the jury to not be distracted by his subsequent behaviour.

Heah’s short address included that the man believed the woman had consented to the sexual activity, and in relation to the kidnapping charge, he would argue that she was not detained and neither was she confined.

“There was no deliberate intention to do that, and the Crown must prove the charges,” she said.

Heah said that because there were no witnesses to the sexual activity, the Crown’s case depended entirely on the woman’s evidence that was neither “credible nor reliable”.

“This is not a case of stranger rape but an alleged rape that occurred during a relationship,” Heah said.

The five-day trial before Judge Jo Rielly is being assisted by an interpreter in Mandarin.

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.