The Crown says a man verbally abused and emotionally blackmailed a woman before raping her.
Photo: RNZ / Patrice Allen
The man, who has interim name suppression, has been on trial before Justice Venning in the Auckland High Court this week.
He has pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual violation by rape, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years' jail.
The Crown said he raped a woman after they went on a date in early 2018 while the defence said the pair had consensual sex.
The complainant has told the court the man raped her after she told him she did not want to do anything more than kiss in the motel. She described feeling worried the man would get angry if she kept refusing him because he had raised his voice at an earlier rebuttal.
"I felt like I had to say it again but I was scared that if I, like, said no and pushed him off again then he would get even angrier at me and start shouting again," she said.
She said she'd felt trapped, having left her wallet at a bar earlier that night, so stayed with the man at the motel until he dropped her home the next day.
The man's lawyer Tiffany Cooper pressed her on this yesterday; accusing her of having ample opportunity to remove herself from the situation.
The woman said she was stuck, having messaged two people for help with no reply, and had frozen when the man raped her.
Closing the Crown's case this morning, prosecutor Claire Paterson said the woman's account was credible and must be believed.
"Just because she didn't take every conceivable step that she might have taken to get away from that motel room in no way detracts from the evidence about the fact that she was raped in the motel room later on in the night."
Paterson said the most "telling" piece of evidence was the woman saying she had felt scared the man would get angry if she said no to sex.
"[She] was more worried about [his] temper and him getting angry at her again than she was about letting him have sexual intercourse with her without her consent.
"That was the extent of fear that the defendant had instilled in [her] by the way he behaved when she pushed him off the first time."
She said the defendant had been in a position of power and had used anger and aggression to intimidate the woman into submission.
"By using verbal aggression and emotional blackmail in response to [her] not wanting to have sex with him the defendant managed to get her to stay and was then able to have sex with her against her will and without her putting up any fight.
"He knew absolutely that she did not want to have sex with him but he took advantage of every aspect of the situation that was to his advantage. No one, in the Crown's submission, in the defendant's shoes would have reasonably thought that [she] was consenting to that sexual intercourse."
For the defence, Cooper said the events of the night in question were "uneventful" and her client had not raped the woman.
"It was a night where two young people went on a date, met up, drank alcohol, socialised, had sex but it wasn't something that was particularly memorable to either of them and it wasn't something that they decided to repeat."
Cooper said the woman's recollection of what had happened that night had been contorted and the rape allegation fabricated.
Justice Venning will deliver his verdict in the judge-alone trial at 10am on Friday.
