Police rape case: Officer accused of lying to cover up cheating
A policewoman who says she was raped by her colleague has denied lying to cover up cheating on her partner.
The defendant's name remains secret. Photo: RNZ / Anneke Smith
The woman has been in the witness box in her colleague's trial at the Auckland District Court for close to two days now.
The 29-year-old man, whose identity remains a secret on appeal, is accused of groping the woman and later raping her while she slept.
This morning his lawyer Paul Borich QC suggested the woman was embarrassed after "hooking up" with the man and would rather label him a rapist than face up to cheating.
The woman denied that, and Borich's suggestion she had dramatised parts of her evidence to convince the jury it was truthful.
She cried last week while describing a medical examination she underwent after alleging the sexual assaults.
"You tell them what happened and essentially then you just get treated like a specimen or a piece of meat.
"And then have to just strip off and be swabbed for them to gather evidence and then put on foreign clothes," she told the jury.
The woman said she was reluctant to make the allegation knowing the process that followed but went through with it because what happened to her was wrong.
This morning, Borich suggested she'd chosen the words "specimen" and "piece of meat" to curry sympathy with the jurors.
"I am telling the truth and the truth is the emotional and traumatic experience I have been through as a result," she said.
Borich suggested the woman she would rather lie about being raped by his client than face the fact she'd cheated on her partner
"I did not cheat... with [the defendant]. I was sexually assaulted by [the defendant]," the woman said.
The jury has heard a brief recording the woman made after the alleged rape in which you can hear her say to the man: "I denied you earlier and I've woken up to you f****** me".
She began to cry in court today as Borich queried what time had elapsed between her being in pain and starting the recording.
"I don't know how long he was doing what he was doing to me and I don't know how long he was trying to make out like it was all fine before I pressed record.
"All I know is what I woke up to and it's absolutely atrocious you're trying to make it out as something it's not when we know what it is."
The woman denied Borich's suggestion she'd "got the guilts" and staged a sexual assault and gone into "evidence-collecting mode" making a recording and taking notes on her phone.
The woman said she wasn't lying and repeatedly denied the defence lawyer's varying suggestions her story was "nonsense".
The trial before Judge Evangelos Thomas and jury of six women and six men continues.