The courts Rape hearing continued

Press, 4 March 1982, Page 7

The courts Rape hearing continued

Evidence of the police finding a man and a girl, aged 16, In a house, and the girl appearing upset and complaining that she had been raped and had her clothes torn from her, was given in the District Court yesterday. Depositions of evidence of prosecution witnesses are being heard in four charges against Wayne Barry Keen, aged 24, unemployed. He has elected trial by jury on charges of raping the girl, detaining her without her consent with the intention of having sexual intercourse, assaulting, and indecently assaulting her, all on or about January 14. Yesterday was the second day of the hearing. Messrs R. M. Naysmith and R. C. Holland, Justices of the Peace, adjourned the case to today for completion. Sergeant J. E. Dwyer appears for the police, and Mr P. R, Van Rij for the defendant. The girl complainant gave evidence on Tuesday that the defendant took the girl from a house, each' was visiting, and raped her in a park before taking her to his flat and pushing her into an attic when police arrived. In evidence yesterday a married woman said the girl complainant, her boyfriend, and the defendant who the witness had known for about a year, were at her house on the evening of January 14. The defendant followed the girl out of the lounge when she answered a telephone call and then sat beside her at the stairs. Her husband told her to call the girl out into the kitchen because her boyfriend was a - bit upset about the girl being out there. She called three times at intervals but the girl did not come. She saw them sitting on the stairs. The witness said her husband again told her to call the girl who then came through the kitchen and into the toilet. The defendant went into the toilet and both were in there five to 10 minutes. When they came out the girl went upstairs, while the defendant started going “mad” in the kitchen and picking an argument. He pushed the witness a couple of times. Her husband then got “mad” and told the defendant to go home. Her husband then left the house. The defendant. after trying to tell her husband not to leave, returned inside “going mad” and telling her and the girl’s boyfriend to get him to come back. The defendant then pushed her and kicked her and picked up a knife, which he had brought to the house from the kitchen. “He waved the knife around, telling us to go and get my husband,” the witness said. He nicked her on the shoulder with the knife. She said she and the girl’s boyfriend went around the block looking for her husband. She did not see the girl who was upstairs when they left. They returned after five to

10 minutes to find her husband home. The girl was not home. Her husband and the girl's boyfriend went to the defendant's house, but were told he was not home. To Mr Van Rij, the woman said the defendant and the girl seemed to be getting on fine. They had talked to each other quite normally. She did not see what happened in the toilet. She did not hear the girl complain at any stage of the evening about the defendant. She had called out to them and got no reply. She agreed the girl could easily have called for assistance. She did not know why the defendant brought the knife around. Constable P. S. Gibson said he. and another constable, after searching unsuccessfully around streets for the defendant and the girl, went to a house at which the downstairs was in darkness, but a light was on upstairs. They went to the rear and shone their torches into what appeared to be the kitchen. He knocked on the window and the defendant came into the room, followed by a blond-haired girl. She appeared to be very upset and had a swollen mouth. The defendant refused to go outside and speak to the constable, and turned and left the room. The defendant was naked from the waist up, and both appeared to carry cushions. The constable could not see what lower clothing they were wearing as this was below window level. ’The constable said he arranged for police to telephone the address and after another occupant had answered, police were let into the house. A “complete and thorough” search of the house was made, and the defendant and girl found. The girl was very upset and sobbing. She was dressed in a sweat shirt, and with a quilt wrapped round her lower body. He took the girl to a patrol car and questioned her, and she said; “He raped me.” She told the constable she could show him the scene of the alleged offence, and they drove to a grassed area beside a school. She told the constable the defendant had torn her clothing off her and had bitten her lips. She said she had not met him before that evening. Cross-examined, Constable Gibson said the defendant had not been touching the girl when they were seen through the kitchen window. When he left the kitchen, she followed straight behind. • He said he supposed the girl could have walked towards the back door, to where the police were, when the defendant left the room. The girl did not say anything or indicate anything. The constable agreed that the police would have been authorised to break into the house at the time, if they thought a serious offence had taken place. He said they decided against that, for the girl’s safety, because they had been told what had happened earlier.