Trial on rape, abduction charges

Press, 5 March 1982, Page 5

Trial on rape, abduction charges

A man in the District Court yesterday was committed for trial on four charges involving the alleged abduction and rape of a girl, aged 16, last month. After a hearing lasting two days and a half of depositions of evidence of prosecution witnesses, Messrs R. M. Naysmith and R. C. Holland, Justices of the Peace, held there was sufficient evidence to commit the defendant, Wayne Barry Keen, for trial. Keen, aged 24, unemployed, was committed to the High Court for trial on a charge of raping the girl on or about January 14, and was committed to the District Court for trial on charges of abducting the girl with intent to have sexual intercourse, assaulting her, and indecently assaulting her. The defendant, who denied all charges, was remanded in custody pending his trials.

He was represented toy Mr E. R. Van Rij, who reserved his defence. Sergeant J. E. Dwyer prosecuted. Police allege that the defendant took the girl from a house each was visiting, and raped her in school grounds before taking her to his flat and pushing her into the ceiling space when police arrived. Constable M. J. D. Macklen said that after police were let into the house by another occupant about 1.50 a.m. he decided to search the ceiling space and found the defendant and the girl, aged 16, hiding in a recess. They were under some joists and were covered by a bedspread and lying on another bedspread. They were asked to leave the recess. The defendant at first said he was not able to but then crawled out following the girl.

The girl was naked from the waist down; the defendant wore jeans, but had no shirt.

As the girl left the ceiling the defendant asked her if she was 16, and when she said she was he said; “good they can’t do anything.” The girl began to cry as soon as she stood up. After being told he was being arrested for assaulting an occupant of the house he had been at earlier, the defendant became abusive and eventually had to be placed in handcuffs. Cross-examined he said he had not found any weapons in the ceiling.

Detective G. D. Church gave evidence of interviewing the defendant who tola him that at the house which the girl was also visiting that evening she had told him she wanted to run away from home. “He sort of egged her

on a bit.” He had started drinking at this house, after 5 p.m. A woman at this house was “trying to do a line with him in front of her old man.” Eventually, he ended up in the hall way talking with the girl, and with the woman there also for a time. After a while he suggested to the girl that they leave, and she got up and left with him. He did not pull her away. She just came. She was all for it.

They went through a fence and into school grounds. He had a knife in his pocket which he had taken to the house. He did not know why he took it.

In the school grounds, they “just. got into it.” The girl just lay there. She was all for it.

He thought the girl had taken her clothing off, but he took her panties off. He cut

these off with the knife. He did not know why; it was a spur of the moment thing, he supposed.

He had not threatened her with the knife. Detective Church said the defendant said he had sex with her. She seemed to be enjoying . it. She did not struggle, or say anything. She just lay there. He suggested they go to his place and th*ey just walked home, “and then the cops arrived.” He aia not hit the girl, but gave her a playful nip on the ear.

In a written statement to Detective Church the defendant allegedly said the girl seemed to enjoy his advances at the house and seemed quite keen on him. He suggested they leave and she held his hand and left with him.

He considered the girl did

not care about her boyfriend who had been saj’ing’things earlier such as “putting her on the block."

They ended up in the school grounds and after some petting he had sex with her.

She “did a moan” about his cutting her knickers off with the knife, but just lay there all the time.

They decided to go to his place and he gave the girl his jersey as she could not find her clothes.

The jersey was all she had on. When they reached his flat he asked her to be quiet so that another occupant would not hear them.

He decided that they should hide in the roof space, in case her boyfriend and the man at the house they had visited, called.

He haa hiaaen there also because of the police, as he thought he would be in

trouble because the girl hac run away from home. The statement said ht never threatened or punched the girl, and she was quite willing to go with him. and was willing when he had sex with her. Cross-examined, Detective Church said the defendant’s jeans and underpants had been taken but had not been sent for scientific examination for staining. Asked if it would be normal in a case like this to seek scientific analysis, the detective said slides and swabs taken by a doctor had been examined by the D.S.I.R. for traces of seminal stains, and this proved negative. Accordingly the-clothes were not forwarded for examination. The fact that he had had intercourse with the girl was not disputed by the defendant, Detective "Church said.