Woman’s memory under scrutiny in Tauranga seasonal workers’ rape trial

Willie Tokon Tankon (left) and Jonathan Lumu, who are seasonal workers from Vanuatu, deny raping a woman during a night off work at their accommodation near Tauranga. They say the sex was consensual.

Warning: This story deals with details of alleged sexual violence, which some readers may find upsetting.

A woman’s memory of the night she alleges she was raped by two seasonal workers has come under scrutiny during a trial at Tauranga District Court.

Vanuatu nationals Jonathan Lumu and Willie Tokon Tankon face charges of rape and sexual violation over incidents they say were consensual.

The men, who worked in a kiwifruit packhouse near Tauranga, say the woman made up the allegations because she regretted her actions, given she had a boyfriend.

She disagreed with that proposition.

But the woman has blanks in her memory which formed the basis of cross-examination by the men’s lawyers today in court.

She couldn’t remember much of the night in mid-2020, including how she came to be in a room with Lumu before he allegedly raped her.

To a number of questions about how things unfolded, what happened at various points in the night, and how she came to be in different places the woman said: “I can’t remember”.

She accepted there had been consensual kissing with Lumu but didn’t remember how her pants were removed.

But one thing she said she does remember – she told him to “stop”, and he wouldn’t.

“I didn’t want anything sexual to happen and I tried to stop it,” she told Lumu’s lawyer Marcus Zintl.

Zintl put to her that given her memory issues, and the years between the events in question and this week’s trial, she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t given consent.

She said she “wouldn’t have” consented and remembered screaming and crying for help while saying “no”.

The woman recalled she eventually emerged from the room to find a group of men outside fighting.

She appealed for help but ended up in what she thinks was a different room, with a different man.

The Crown says that man was Tankon and that he then also allegedly raped and sexually violated her.

In the woman’s evidence, she confirmed the second man was “the main guy”. In her police evidential video, she described him as having a “big d***”.

“I kept saying it’s too big, stop, get off me,” she said in her video, which was played in court on the first day of the trial.

The trial is taking place at Tauranga District Court.

Under cross-examination the following day, she repeated that she hadn’t wanted sexual activity with that man and explained what she meant by “the main guy”.

“He was just the one who hurt me the most. He wouldn’t stop.”

She said she eventually escaped the room by climbing out a window.

Tankon’s lawyer John Wayne Howell put to her that a number of aspects of her account didn’t seem to make sense, including her escape.

There were no fingerprints found on the window itself, nor the latches. However, there was a partial palm print, that matched the woman’s, on the window sill.

Howell put to her that the window couldn’t open wide enough for her to have got out.

She said she couldn’t remember how she got out the window, but she remembered trying to get out and then being outside.

Howell suggested that didn’t make sense. He also put to the woman that her account of having called for help didn’t ring true.

He asked if she truly wanted the jury to believe that despite her screaming for help, and one of her friends coming into the room, no one had helped her.

She said everyone was “having fun drinking”.

The woman claimed that when her friend came in she had asked for help, but the friend just shut the door.

“She comes in, not once but twice and still you want us to believe she didn’t help you?” Howell said.

The complainant replied: “Yeah. At the time I was screaming for help and no one wanted to help me.”

The woman said when she spoke to that friend, who is yet to give evidence in the trial, the friend said she had thought the woman was having fun.

Fights and flirting

Another woman, who was an acquaintance of the complainant and was at the house where the alleged rapes took place, gave evidence today.

She said Lumu and the complainant had been getting along well, even flirting, and she had seen them go off together to a room.

They had “looked cute”, she said.

The woman described the evening, up until then, as one of drinking, dancing and hanging out.

They were meant to be at work that evening but decided to stay at the RSE workers’ accommodation instead.

After Lumu and the complainant had been missing for half an hour to 45 minutes, she and a friend had gone looking for them through the house.

Under cross-examination by Lumu’s lawyer Zintl, the woman was asked if they’d heard any response as they knocked on doors and called out.

She said they hadn’t.

The woman, who was called as a Crown witness, towards the end of her evidence gave her opinion the rapes hadn’t happened.

Her understanding was the sexual activity between Lumu and the complainant had been consensual.

She said Lumu had been looking after all the women that night, escorting them to the bathroom and checking on them “like a little brother”.

In the course of their conversations, he told her that he and the complainant had sex and, after that, he’d asked her out.

The witness said a later conversation with the complainant confirmed the pair had sex, and she said the alleged victim didn’t say anything about it being non-consensual.

The witness also described events earlier in the evening, when Lumu emerged from the hallway.

The witness said this came after she and her friend had failed to find him and the complainant, and had returned to the lounge.

She said Lumu came out, checked on them, and then went to the bathroom. After that, he’d returned to the bedroom where the witness understood the complainant still was.

A fight broke out between Lumu and Tankon, who the witness referred to as “Willie”.

The witness understood this fight happened because Lumu had returned to find Tankon in the room with the complainant.

It was at that point the witness became aware the woman was crying and upset.

The two of them went outside together and the woman told her that Tankon had “tried to put it in her” and had managed to “put it in her”, that she’d been locked in the room, and that she’d tried to climb out the window.

The witness said in court that her opinion was there couldn’t have been any sexual activity between the complainant and Tankon, as there hadn’t been enough time between Lumu coming out of the hallway, going to the toilet, and returning to the room.

She said this all happened within a minute to five minutes.

However, during re-examination, Crown prosecutor Richard Jenson put to her that it wasn’t contested that sexual activity happened, as there was forensic evidence confirming both Tankon and Lumu had sex with the woman that night. The question for the jury will be one of consent.

He asked her if her timing could be wrong, but the witness didn’t accept that.

The trial continues.

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.