Three found guilty on rape-associated counts

Press, 15 May 1985, Page 4

Three found guilty on rape-associated counts

PA Invercargill There were tears and accusations in the High Court at Invercargill at 2 a.m. yesterday when a jury found two men and a woman guilty of rape-associated charges. Three others were found not guilty by a jury of eight men and four women who had deliberated for 10 hours. The accused had denied the charges. It was a second trial, after the Court of Appeal had ruled that the judge had misdirected the jury in the first trial. Terence Francis Haggart and Paul Anthony Morris were convicted of rape and remanded by Mr Justice Heron to Friday for a probation officer’s report and

sentence. Angela Kim Cruickshank was found guilty on two charges of being party to a rape and remanded to Friday also. Cruickshank was found not guilty on two further charges of being party to a rape. Giving its verdict at 2 a.m. to the sounds of sobbing parents and relatives, who had waited since 4 p.m. on Monday, the jury found Peter Joseph Cummings and Robert David Marshall not guilty of rape. James Cavanagh was acquitted on a charge of sodomy. Nine charges faced by the six Gore defendants arose from an incident in which a Gore woman, aged 19, was raped near the town on July

7 last year. When the jury pronounced Morris guilty, three women in the gallery broke into tears and sobbed throughout the rest of the sentencing. As the three found guilty were led to the cells, emotions spilled over in the public gallery. One woman shouted, “We know you didn’t do it.” A man yelled, “When are you going to get some sanity back into this lot (the jury)? She’s a slut.” Another woman called out, “I just can’t understand it. Two of them told the truth and that’s the two that went away.”

As he was led away, Haggart called out, “That’s what you get for telling the truth.”