Witness snag ends rape trial

A rape trial involving the son of a prominent Indian politician was aborted yesterday when three Crown witnesses failed to appear.

The 22-year-old man, from the Punjab, who wed a 19-year-old New Zealand Hindu woman in an arranged marriage, was accused of raping his bride on their wedding night in July last year.

Efforts to find the witnesses failed yesterday morning and the jury, in the High Court at Auckland, was discharged at the start of the afternoon session.

Justice Colin Nicholson told jurors that the witnesses had not appeared. He said there was no realistic way of ensuring they would attend and give evidence in time for the trial to be completed by the jury.

He said he had no option but to declare a mistrial, discharge the jury and postpone the case until this afternoon, when the matter would be reviewed.

The man faced three charges of raping the woman on their wedding night and other counts of unlawful sexual connection in the remaining nine days of their brief marriage.

The girl's family had arranged the marriage by placing an advertisement seeking a husband in an Indian newspaper.

In his opening address, prosecutor Aaron Perkins said the accused came from a traditional Indian background.

The woman had experienced the freedoms of life in New Zealand and Britain, but was not so liberated as to rebel against the wishes of her elders.

She agreed to the marriage, but it was clear from her diary in the weeks before the ceremony, and her evidence this week, that she had second thoughts about going through with it.

She claimed that on her wedding night she told her new husband she was not yet ready for sexual intercourse, but he persisted and raped her three times.

The jury was also told of financial tensions.

Evidence was given that the man's well-connected father was supposed to send money to set his son up in business in New Zealand, but never did - a cause of some friction with the woman who felt that he was bludging off her family.

In cross-examination, defence lawyer Ron Mansfield suggested that the woman had made up the allegations as a way of getting out of the marriage.

Her family, he suggested to the woman, were annoyed that the money never arrived from India.

It was suggested that they had used the criminal process as a way of attempting to get money from the accused's father, saying that the charges would be dropped if he paid $20,000.

The jury also heard that the woman faced a charge of making a false complaint of sexual violation against the accused involving a separate incident.