(file image) Photo: RNZ / Dan Cook
Taiawa Harawira has been found not guilty of indecently assaulting a young girl on three occasions four decades ago.
After deliberating over four days, the jury were unable to reach unanimous verdicts on the remaining charges which included three charges of rape, 16 of indecent assault and four charges of threatening to kill.
Judge Mary-Beth Sharp remanded Harawira on bail to reappear for a callover in April where the Crown will decide whether or not to proceed with the remaining charges.
It was in the late '70s and early '80s, when Harawira, the son of the late Māori icon Titewhai Harawira and brother of former politician Hone Harawira, was alleged to have sexually abused the girl, who was under 12 at the time. It was around the time of heightened Māori activism.
Harawira steadfastly denied the allegations, telling the jury he had been confronted by his mother in 1985 about the alleged abuse and she believed him. Something the Crown said was "simply incredible".
Harawira initially faced 44 charges, but at the end of the crown case Judge Mary-Beth Sharp told the jury she had dismissed 19 due to insufficient evidence, including alleged incidents at a number of marae.
In closing the case to the jury last Monday, prosecutor Robin McCoubrey acknowledged the complainant had got some things wrong in her evidence, but it would be extraordinary if she had not, considering it happened 40 years ago.
"She was doing her best to tell you what happened to her all those years ago," he said.
McCoubrey said the evidence of the complainant, her sister and their mum all had the ring of truth to it.
Harawira groomed the girl by giving her lollies and made repeated threats if she told anyone her mother would be hurt, the woman told the court.
"I just feel like that young girl being pinned down by him," the woman said at one point during her evidence.
She recalled the feel of the rings on his fingers, his weight, the smell of his breath and his long hair.
"She's not ever going to forget those things, because they happened in the way she said," McCoubrey told the jury.
When the woman was a teen she told her mother Harawira had raped her. The mother told the court she spoke to Titewhai Harawira about the alleged rape, but Titewhai chased her out of the house.
Harawira told the jury his mother would not have done this and she spoke with him in 1985 about the allegations. He told her they were untrue and she believed him.
McCoubrey said this exchange is "simply incredible".
What Harawira told the arresting detective in 2020 was true, the Crown said.
"I know what this is about ... I've been waiting for 30 years," Harawira said.
This was Harawira realising his past had caught up with him, McCoubrey said.
But Harawira's lawyer, Ron Mansfield KC, told the jury there were too many significant inconsistencies in the complainant, her sister and her mother's evidence.
Mansfield said she had blurted out this allegation of rape as a teenager in trouble with her parents and from there the lie had blossomed. There were different accounts between the three police interviews and her evidence in court, he said.
He pointed to the fact 18 charges "disappeared" concerning allegations the woman had been sexually abused on multiple marae as a young girl.
"It's beggars belief, frankly, that ... what they say about anything is reliable."
Mansfield said at the very highest the jury have to be sure, but he said we don't have any idea of what's happened on the complainant's evidence.
Harawira was a credible and reliable witness, Mansfield said.
"He said he was innocent of the allegations and steadfastly maintained that."
Harawira was between 19 and 23 when he's alleged to have sexually abused the girl, he told the jury he was too busy living his own life and had no interest in looking after or babysitting children.
- This story was originally published by Stuff.