RAPE CHARGE

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28251, 12 April 1957, Page 18

RAPE CHARGE

Accused To Stand Trial (New Zealand Press Association) NAPIER, April 11.

Alfred Lyle Andrew, a 40-year-old salesman, of no fixed abode, who appeared in the Napier Magistrate’s Court today on a charge of rape, was committed to the Supreme Court for trial. The offence was alleged to have occurred at the Westshore Hotel, near Napier, on. March 19. Seventeen witnesses gave evidence for the prosecution. Mr W. H. Carson, S.M., was on the Benqh. The prosecution was conducted by Senior-Detective A. Reid.

Accused was represented by Mr R. Stacey and Mr S. Smith, of Wellington.

At the beginning of the hearing the Magistrate made an interim order that the name of the principal witness, the complainant, be suppressed. At the end of the prosecution’s evidence Mr Stacey submitted that the case should hot go to a jury. He said that a jury could not find that the offence had taken place on the date alleged, there was no evidence that the girl did not in fact consent, and no evidence had been given by the complainant that she was drunk or drugged at the time The accused then pleaded not guilty, and was committed for trial. Complainant’s Evidence A 19-year-old Hastings girl gave evidence that on March 19 she met a man ■ who had called her the previous day by telephone and introduced himself as the brother of a girl friend of hers. She felt that she would be slighting her friend if she did not accept the man’s invitation to go out, she said. The witness said she had three gins and squash and one lemon squash with the man at a Hastings hotel, and then went mushrooming with him. She accepted another drink from him after protesting that she did not want it. She noticed that the drink was a bit cloudy. The next thing she could remember she was in a bed in a hotel room. Percival James Clark, chief chemist at the Dominion Laboratory of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Wellington, gave evidence that a small glass phial handed to him for examination on April 1 contained nembutal in capsules of one and a half grains. Nembutal was a standard drug used for sedation. Phyllis Carol Byers, wife of the licensee of the Westshore Hotel, said that two persons whom she did not know booked in there on March 19. When she saw the girl later she seemed dazed. “She did not seem to know what she was doing, and was obviously in some sort of trouble,” said the witness.

Anthony Francis Foley, a doctor, said he examined the complainant on the night of the alleged offence. Although the girl could recollect the occurrences of that day in the morning and moderately m the evening, there was a complete blank for some hours during the afternoon. She had a slightly dazed or semi-detached disposition during the examination. There was no obvious evidence of external injury. The witness said there could be no doubt there had been sexual intercourse. Woman in Truck Traffic Officer J. A. Rutter, employed by the Transport Department at Hastings, said that he was on duty near Pakowhai on March 19 when he passed a man standing beside a small truck on the side of the road. Two suitcases were on the ground. The witness said he drove on, and afterwards the accused drove up behind where the witness had parked his car, and parked his small truck. The witness said he could see through his rear-vision mirror that there was a young woman in the front seat of the truck. Her head was out of the* corner of the window, thrown right back, her eyes were closed, and her mouth open. “The young woman never moved. I thought she was drunk,’’ said the witness.

This concluded the police evidence, and after the accused had pleaded not guilty he was committed for trial.