Man knelt and asked for forgiveness

A man who denies raping a young relative knelt and asked for forgiveness from her family, the Supreme Court heard yesterday.

The man’s wife at first denied having seen any apology take place, before she admitted to the court that they had in fact gone.

But, she claimed, her husband had denied raping and indecently assaulting her niece from the age of nine and only apologised because her parents had asked him to.

“My husband was against going because he had no sin but I told him that we had to go and apologise because it’s what my parents had requested.”

Instead of going to the parents and apologising, the wife claimed that the parents had come to their house and attacked her husband. Her name, that of the alleged victim, the defendant and other identifying details are suppressed to avoid identifying the girl, now 19 years old.

Her aunt’s evidence was challenged repeatedly by Justice Vui Clarence Nelson yesterday. She was the first and only witness called by the defence. She denied living at the village where the alleged incidents occurred in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. She told the court as a result of eloping with her husband in 1999 she had not been back to her parents’ village until Christmas 2005. That was when she had patched things up with her parents.

The witness, 31, stays home to care for their eight children. During her evidence she was questioned whether she loved her husband - if loving her husband meant she didn’t want anything to happen to him since he was the bread winner of their family. She replied yes. Prosecutor Leone Su’a Mailo questioned whether she lived at the village where the alleged incidents had taken place. She denied this.

Prosecution put to her that her sister had earlier given evidence that the victim and her younger sister had helped her with her children.

“No”, she replied. Was there no time in the six years since being with your husband that she returned to the village the alleged incidents took place?

“No, we [only] moved there at the end of 2005 after I felt the need to apologise to my parents.”

She also denied that she and her husband had gone to her older sister’s place to apologise, or hearing her husband say that he had sexual intercourse with the victim, who consented to it. Following this cross examination by Mrs. Mailo, Justice Nelson told the witness that her sister had given evidence that the accused and her had come to their house at Vaoala to apologise for his actions.

That she had told her husband to say what he had to. Justice Nelson questioned whether she was telling the truth when she denied evidence from her sister. The judge went on to repeat the sister’s evidence that her husband had gone to Vaoala to apologise to the victims parents, admitting to them that “they had sexual intercourse but she consented to it.”

The wife replied that they didn’t go to Vaoala. In fact, she said, it was her sister and her husband who had come to their place. And when her sister came into the house she assaulted her husband while he was sitting on the bed.

“No apology was made,” she told the court. Justice Nelson asked the witness whether her evidence was there was no apology, and that her sister had assaulted the accused instead.

She confirmed this and said that the whole time her sister was attacking her husband, by pulling his hair and punching his back, she sat there and listened to what she was saying. In fact earlier that day she received a phone call from her sister.

The accused’ wife told the court she was not aware of any allegations against her husband at that stage.

During that call her sister told her “to watch out for my husband, he has done some indecent things to my daughter”.

She told her sister to come to their place and discuss the matter in a civilised manner. Instead upon her sister’s arrival to their house that very evening she went straight to attacking her husband before leaving.

Justice Nelson questioned whether she had asked her husband about the allegations made by her sister. She confirmed asking her husband about it but he said the allegations against him were wrong.

“I told him to leave it till later as my mind was not settled and I didn’t believe it because I didn’t see it,” she said. You didn’t believe the allegations, she was asked. No, she said. If so – you didn’t believe your husband had sinned - why did you go over and apologise?

“What happened was my parents called and requested that we go over and apologise,” she said.

The witness about to go into details of what her parents had said to her when she was informed by Justice Nelson to stop as second hand evidence is against the law. Her parents were not giving evidence in the trial, he explained, she was. She was told to stick to the question. At one point, Justice Nelson told defence lawyer Leota Ray Schuster to “keep your witness in order”.

Justice Nelson then questioned why, if her sister had come over to their house and attacked her husband, said what she did and she had spoken to the accused and he claimed nothing happened, yet two to three weeks later they go to Vaoala and kneel before them to apologise. In reply, the witness said they only went there because her parents asked her husband to apologise.

Mrs. Mailo and Defence Counsel Leota Ray Schuster returned to court at 2pm yesterday to make their final submissions in the matter.

This followed one of the charges being withdrawn. The accused was initially before the court for 12 counts of indecent assault, 1 of attempted rape and 2 of rape. He pleaded not guilty to all charges. But yesterday after a discussion in chambers Mrs. Mailo made an application to withdraw one of the indecent assault charges against the defendant, alleged to have happened in 2010 at Vaitele-uta.