Supreme Court Man Accused Of Rape Of 15-Year-Old Girl

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31094, 24 June 1966, Page 8

Supreme Court Man Accused Of Rape Of 15-Year-Old Girl

The trial of a man accused of the rape of a 15-year-old girl in the Pleasant Point domain at South New Brighton, where he had driven her in his car, began In the Supreme Court yesterday, and will continue today. The accused is John Moore Kelly, aged 22, a naval rating (Mr M. G. L. Loughnan) who has pleaded not guilty. His trial is before Mr Justice Macarthur and a jury. The Crown’s case against Kelly was that he had seen the girl, who was known to him, in Cathedral square about 8.30 a.m. on April 27, and agreed to give her a lift to her grandmother’s home in Aranui —but on driving down Page’s road had turned right at Breezes road, instead of left, and in spite of the girl’s protest driven on to a secluded spot in the Pleasant Point domain. He had there made advances to the girl, and after a struggle in which she had screamed and attempted to get away from the car had raped her, it was alleged. Kelly’s strong denial to the police of taking the girl to the domain and of intercourse with her, or any attempt at it, perhaps made the jury’s task easier, said the Crown Prosecutor (Mr C. M. Roper). “If you accept the girl’s evidence against his, you might be led to the conclusion that intercourse was without her consent,” said Mr Roper. It might be suggested in Kelly’s defence, said Mr

Roper, that the giri’s evidence was open to two interpretations—one being that she had been flattered by the attentions of an older man, and had willingly had intercourse with him.

But the jury could put this alternative right out of its mind, because the accused had denied the whole incident.

The girl complainant gave evidence in accord with the Crown’s case, and in an extensive cross-examination denied any suggestion of consent. Detective • Sergeant N. J. Stokes gave evidence of Kelly’s denial of the allegations against him—a denial which Kelly repeated in part in evidence on his own behalf, saying that he bad had intercourse with the complainant, but with her consent, she having made no attempt to get away.

Kelly had completed his evidence, but had not been

cross-examined, when the trial was adjourned to this morning.