Pen-pal alleged to have kidnapped and raped girl

Press, 30 August 1988, Page 24

Pen-pal alleged to have kidnapped and raped girl

A 16-year-old girl endured a terrible ordeal extending over several days after she was allegedly kidnapped by a youth who was her penpal, according to what was told to Mr Justice Tipping and a jury in the High Court yesterday.

The Prosecutor, Mr Brent Stanaway, said the Crown alleged the girl was repeatedly raped; that she was beaten up and threatened with a knife; that she was pulled many kilometres across hilly terrain so that her bare feet were cut, bruised and blistered; that she was forced to sleep in the open in cold blustery weather and that she had little or no food and drink on some days.

After an intensive manhunt by police and civilians in remote farmland in the Conway River area, in which helicopters wee used, the girl stumbled out on to the Main North Road and flagged down a passing car.

When she flung herself into the vehicle she was dirty, dishevelled and disoriented, according to the evidence.

Michael Shane Henry Lihou, aged 20, unemployed, has pleaded not guilty to 20 counts. His trial is not expected to finish until next week. The Crown is calling 23 witnesses.

Lihou has pleaded not guilty to 10 charges of sexual violation by committing rape, two of aggravated wounding, one of kidnapping, one of threatening grievous bodily harm, two of car conversion, three of burglary and one of possession of an offensive weapon. Messrs Stanaway and Edward Wylie appear for the Crown, and Messrs Nigel Hampton and Brian Callaghan for Lihou.

The trial concerned the activities of Lihou from the early hours of Sunday, April 13, to the morning of Friday, April 22, 1988, Mr Stanaway said when opening the Crown case. The Crown alleged that Lihou abducted a girl, aged 16, from her home in Christchurch, took her mother’s car and forced

the girl to go with him to Waiau and through North Canterbury back-country where he burgled a number of homes and converted a truck.

During that period Lihou had sexual intercourse with the girl against her will on 10 occasions, said Mr Stanaway. In October, 1987, the girl received a letter from Lihou, who was in Invercargill, and they wrote to one another regularly between then and April of this year.

Early in April, Lihou telephoned the girl from Invercargill to say that he was coming to Christchurch, and on April 8 and 9 he visited her at her mother’s home.

From the correspondence and Lihou’s meetings with the girl, it was apparent that he had become infatuated with her. On Friday, April 15, Lihou again visited the girl about 6 p.m. She indicated to him that while she wished to be his friend, she wanted no more from the relationship than that. Initially, Lihou remained calm, but then became upset and threw a wine bottle at her. She raced outside and Lihou chased her.

A neighbour, who saw what was happening tried to calm Lihou.

After sitting and talking for some time, the couple went back to the flat. The girl allowed him to stay the night, but they slept in separate rooms. He asked to stay another night. The girl said that he could, and gave him a spare key to the front door. The girl went to her job as a nanny, leaving Lihou on his own in the house. Lihou visited a friend, Richard Waikato, in Stanmore Road. About midday on Saturday, April 16, they went to the girl’s home to watch television. She returned about 5.40 p.m.

About 6.20 p.m. the girl’s employer came to the house because of his concern for her safety and her desire that Lihou leave.

Early in the evening, Lihou and Waikato left, and the girl went with friends to the Valley Inn Tavern. She returned home about midnight with three youths. Earlier in the evening, Lihou went to the girl’s home and broke in by smashing a window, as he had returned his key. Lihou hid under her bed when he heard her and her friends arriving. About 1.30 a.m. the girl and one of the youths got into the bed under which Lihou was hiding. At 2.20 a.m. he came out from under the bed and punched the youth several times about the face, causing him to bleed from the nose and mouth, while he was still lying on the bed.

Lihou called the girl a slut and other derogatory terms and tied them both up, using scarves and a tie. He went into the kitchen and returned with a knife.

He said that he was going to kill the girl and poked her several times in the neck with the point of the knife. Lihou went into the girl’s mother’s bedroom, where he had a fight with one of the youths, whom the accused said he was going to stab in the stomach.

The youth held Lihou’s hand with the knife and hit him over the head with a half empty bottle of beer and struggled with him as he manoeuvred him into the kitchen.

After closing the door behind him, the youth ran headlong through the glass-panelled front door to escape. He suffered several cuts and ran to a house to call the police and an ambulance. In the meantime, Lihou dragged the girl from her home and pushed her into the passenger seat of her mother’s car. Her hands were tied behind her and he fastened the seatbelt around her and locked the door before driving north.

He drove for about 20 minutes before stopping and siphoning petrol from several cars, using a bottle and a piece of

garden hose.

Lihou drove down a shingle road for some time. When he stopped the car he ordered the girl to get into the back seat. At her pleading, he untied her hands before forcing her to take her clothes off.

At first the girl fought Lihou, but he became very angry. Every time she tried to fight him he would hit her.

After having intercourse, Lihou said to her: “Now you know what it is like to be raped.” The journey was continued and after rejoining the sealed road the girl saw a sign that said Culverden.

Later, Lihou pulled over on to the shingle verge on the side of the road.

The girl was forced into the back seat and told to take her clothes off. When she refused, he hit her with the back of his hand. Because she did not want to be hit again, the girl stripped and Lihou had intercourse with her in the back of the car. While still naked, he forced her out of the car at knife-point on to a blanket, which he had stolen from a car he had syphoned petrol from. He again had intercourse with her.

Lihou drove to Mr Eddie Bell’s home in Leader Road, Waiau. Mr Bell lived there with several children whom he looked after. Mr Bell was Lihou’s brother-in-law. The car was parked behind some trees out of sight of the house. Lihou told the girl that the house belonged to a friend of his who would not be concerned about what he had done, and that they would help him chase her down if she tried to get away. When he was not able to get any response at the house, Lihou returned to the car and again raped the girl, Mr Stanaway said.

At 10.30 p.m. on Sunday, April 17, Lihou and the girl went to the house where Bell had a number of male visitors. Bell and his friends assisted Lihou in changing a flat tyre,

and in starting me car, which had a flat battery. At one stage the girl was sitting alone in the driver’s seat of the car, but she did not take the opportunity to speed off because she thought she would be chased down and she did not know where she was. When Lihou turned on the car radio he heard a news item about his kidnapping the girl. He made reference to the kidnapping several times during the day. After driving to a river bank, Lihou told the girl that he was going to let her go, but she had to kill him first. He gave her a knife and told her to stick it in him.

“However, the girl could not do it, and he said that he could not go on living if she didn’t want him as a boy-friend. He was very sorry for what he had done,” Mr Stanaway said. Later the girl was at the wheel on the inland Kaikoura route in the early hours of April 18 when she deliberately drove over what she thought was a cliff.

She said that she was in such a state at the time that she could not take any more and decided to end it all. In fact the cliff was a bank. They were both unscathed, but the car could not be moved and they both slept in it until dawn. Next morning Lihou put dirt and scrub over the vehicle to hide it. The two left the car and walked up a hill for some time towards the Charwell River area. They came upon a haybarn where the girl was forced to undress and was raped. They were there for about threequarters of an hour. After leaving the barn, the girl saw a helicopter in the distance and ran towards it. Lihou chased her, caught her and threw her to the ground. He hit her and told her that if she ever did that again he would kill her.