SUPREME COURT Man Accused Of Rape Of Girl Given Lift Home

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31307, 1 March 1967, Page 7

SUPREME COURT Man Accused Of Rape Of Girl Given Lift Home

A man who offered an 18-year-old girl a lift home on the evening of November 8 had driven her to the back of Christchurch Airport where he had intercourse with her after extorting her consent partly by threats and partly by. violence—and was therefore guilty of rape, the Crown alleged in the Supreme Court yesterday. The accused, Ernest James Brown, aged 26, a glass worker (Mr M. J. Glue), pleads not guilty. Questioned by the police, after the girl had identified him in Cathedral square a week later, Brown had said: “This could have happened, and it couldn’t have happened,” the Crown Prosecutor (Mr N. W. Williamson) told the jury. “If I did take this girl out to the back of Harewood and rape her, I must have been so tired and a bit drunk that I can’t remember it,” Brown’s statement had said. “But if I was that bad I wouldn’t have been able to drive the car, so I couldn’t have.” Fifteen Crown witnesses have been called at the trial, which will continue before Mr Justice Macarthur this morning. It took the whole of yesterday morning’s sitting for the complainant to give her evidence and be cross-examined.

Complainant’S Evidence The girl eaid that ehe had encountered the accused in the Albatross Coffee Lounge in Cathedral square, where she had gone at 1 p.m. to wait for

her bus after attending a Youth for Christ tea at the Y.M.C.A. rooms—ehe was a Sunday school teacher, she said.

She felt "a bit iffy" Jbout accepting a lift home from the accused, but felt some obligation to be friendly to him because he had paid for her coffee. He had seemed "quite a decent type,” and well spoken. The girl described how the accused drove to Harewood the opposite direction to her home, and down a plantation tra*ck to the-Waimakariri riverbed. Here, she said, the accused made advances to ber, and threatened to "knock her cold” if she did not get out of the car. Shs did so, and tried to run off, but was chased and caught and a struggle ensued. Eventually, the accused got a rug from the car, threw her on it, and had Intercourse with her —to which she submitted through fear of what might happen if she did not, she told Mr Glue in cross-examination. In further cross-examination, the girl denied having given Brown any encouragement, and said she had repulsed all his advances in the car. Mr Glue: You did let him pick you up? Witness: I suppose you could say that. "Beyond Caring" The girl sa‘ld that Brown had driven her home—by which time she was in such ■ state that she was beyond earing what happened to her. She agreed that when she had thought Brown might drive off somewhere else and rape her again and she had openly told him she was scared of him and wanted to go home, he had willingly driven her there. She agreed the accused had said: "You had only to mention that before, and I would have driven you home.” The girl agreed that when she got home she may have told her elder sister: ”1 had quits a good time”—but the sister, in evidence corroborating

the complainant's story, said this was only because their parents were In the next room, and she (complainant) had been too upset to tell them. Two waiters at the Albatross Coffee Lounge gave evidence of seeing Brown, whom they knew as a customer approach the complainant there on the evening of November 8. Brown, they said, appeared to be forcing his attention on her, andshe trying to avoid him. Medical evidence was given by Dr. J. S. Willson Mid Dr. H. B. Fearnley.

Detective T. K. Watkins produced the accused’s written statement. Arrested and charged. Brown had had nothing to say, and when confronted with the complainant said: "Never seen her before In my life.”

Detective-Sergeant A. E. V. Yaxley sJid that the complainant had firmly Identified Brown in Cathedral square on November 15.

At this stage, with the completion of the Crown's evidence the trial was adjourned to this morning.