Gang rape threatened, Court told

Press, 7 April 1978, Page 16

Gang rape threatened, Court told

A Black Power Gang member attempting to rape a girl aged 16 told her that if. she did not submit that she would be “put on the block” — gang raped — Mr Justice Roper and a jury were told in the Supreme Court yesterday. Matthew Earl Hutana, aged 17, unemployed, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of rape on December 26. Mr D. L. Saunders appears for the Crown and Mr M. J. Glue for Hutana. The trial will finish today. Opening his case Mr Saunders said that the Crown alleged that Hutana had sexual intercourse with the the girl against her will late on the evening of Boxing Day at the back of a house in Woodham Road where a party was being held. The girl had been! picked up at the Star and! Garter Hotel. The girl travelled in a car driven by a man called Johnny. Hutana was another passenger. After the car stopped outside the house where the party was held the girl and a companion went t'o the rear of the property to relieve themselves. Hutana and another man followed them. As she was about to pull ■ up her pants the heard her | friend call out and about the | same time she was pushed [to the ground by Hutana. I She screamed for help and! struggled but Hutana had intercourse with her. While the girl was struggling Hutana told her that if she did not stop she would be “put on the block,” which meant that she would be raped by other members of the gang at the house. Members of the Black Power Gang came out of the house and the owner of the house told Hutana that theie would be no gang bash in his garden. While Hutaria was arguing with the gang president the girl managed to pull up her trousers and escape out on to the street where her friend was waiting. A short time later Hutana, who was in an angry mood, came out and threw his jacket in the car. He said: “How degrading. I have had my patch ripped off.” The gang patch had apparently been removed as a punish* ment. As the two girls were!

being driven back to an address in Gloucester Street they were shown an axe and were warned that they were not to tell anyone about what had ahppened, Mr Saunders said,, Detective Robert John Curd said that he interviewed Hutana on December 27. Hutana made a written statement in which he said that he had gone to the Star and Garter Hotel soon after 10 p.m. on Boxing Day. He left in a car driven by a man named Johnny and among the other passengers were two girls whose names he could not remember. Hutana said that he was not drunk but he had had six handles and a nip of irum. The two girls were! fairly drunk. They went to a I house near the river. The I girls stayed in the car most jof the time while he was ! drinking beer in the house. He and a friend named Henry went out to the car and drank beer with the girls who said they wanted to go to the toilet so they were shown to a path at the back of the house. . “They were pulling up their trousers when me and Henry went over. I started pashing up the one with the long hair on the grass. She was sitting on the ground pulling her jeans up,” Hutana said in the statement. The other two were shouting around and he started to take the girl’s trousers off. They had intercourse. “As I was finishing a) whole crowd of them came! out from the house. My girl got dressed. “Then the owner of the! house came up and said that he didn’t want no gang bash in his garden. I had a fight with him. I talked with him for a while and then went back to the car with the girls,” the statement said. Hutana said that his girl began crying because she had lost her handbag. He found it in the garden and gave it back to her. When she looked in it she said that her money had been “ripped off.” He had a bottle of beer in the car and after talking to the girl she settled down.

After going into the house he had a fight with the president of the Black Power Gang of which he had been a member . for about a month. His jacket was taken off and the gang patch removed from the back of it.