Youth says he was forced into stabbing rape victim

A young man claimed he was forced at gunpoint by three strangers into taking part in the rape and stabbing of a 14-year-girl who was then left for dead, the High Court at Auckland was told yesterday.

David Mamea, 18, has denied attempted murder, rape and being party to rape but has pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary.

The jury yesterday watched a videotape of Mamea's police interview from January 29 last year.

He said three strange men picked him up from a reserve in South Auckland in the early hours of December 31, 2004. He was forced to drive with them to the victim's house.

He told police he recognised the house because he and three other friends had burgled it months earlier.

"I got taken to this house ... the same house I did the burglary from," Mamea told the interviewing officer, Detective Steve Greally.

He said the other men entered the house through an open door first, then he was summoned to go in.

He remembered walking past bedrooms and seeing children sleeping.

"I got told to stab the girl or otherwise I will get killed, and I stabbed her once and I left the room," he said.

Mr Greally asked Mamea why he stabbed the girl, and he answered: "I just went and did it because actually, I had a gun pointing into my back, a shotgun."

He said he left the knife in the room after stabbing the victim once in the chest or stomach area and then he walked out for five minutes or so.

"I came back and I got pushed [into her]."

Fingerprint testing showed Mamea's palm print had been left in the victim's blood stains on her bedding.

Forensic scientist Sue Vintiner told the court Mamea's DNA was found in saliva, blood and hair samples collected during scene examination but semen samples found belonged to an unidentified man.

Mamea said when he went back in the room he thought the girl was dead. He said he was told to drag her outside.

"I saw that the girl was just lying there ... hanging [off the bed] ... I thought she was dead.

"She wasn't moving her eyes, wasn't moving, she wasn't screaming."

Police said the girl had 10 stab wounds all over her body and fell unconscious during the stabbing and the rape.

Mamea said he dumped the victim by the driveway but then was told to throw her over the back fence.

The girl was found by her parents who heard her cries for help as they returned home about 4.30am.

She was taken to hospital in a critical condition and discharged a week later.

The trial before Justice Graham Lang is expected to run to the middle of next week.

- NZPA