Rape, abduction, claims

Press, 8 May 1982, Page 4

Rape, abduction, claims

The lower court hearing of joint charges against five men of abduction and rape of a girl, aged 15. continued for its second day yesterday and was further adjourned to Monday for completion. Police alleged that the girl was gang-raped in a flat in Gloucester Street after she had been abducted by the defendants from outside a hamburger bar in Hampshire Street in the early evening of March 16. The defendants have elected trial bv jury on joint charges of taking the girl without her consent with the intention of. having sexual intercourse’with her, and of raping her.

Jftey are John Tihema, ages 37. a shearer, Kevin Kehoe, aged 20, unemployed (both represented by Mr D. C. Fitzgibbon), Raudie Hakopa, aged 21, unemployed, Cedric Matthew Paul Hapakuku, aged 18, an unemployed labourer, and Tunia

Piwi Kahu. aged 25, unemployed (also known asPiwi Tunia Heitia), all three represented by Mr E. Bedo. Mr V. C. Clarke and Mrs J. A. Hendrie, Justices of the Peace, are on the Bench. Sergeant G. G. Cleland prosecuted. On the first day of the hearing on Thursday the complainant gave evidence of having been "blocked" by the five defendants, who were Mongrel Mob gang members, after she had been dragged by her hair and then forced into a car and driven to the flat in Gloucester Street. She said she was raped by each defendant- during the night and was made to have oral sex with Hapakuku, Hakopa, and Kehoe. A detective gave evidence that when Hapakuku was interviewed in relation to the alleged offences he denied having been in the car when the complainant was picked

up at the hamburger bar. and denied having been in the flat that night. Resuming her evidence yesterday the complainant said in cross-examination that almost on every occasion she undressed herself before the offences took place in the bedroom. She denied having got into the car of her own free will.