Accused denies rape and threats
A man accused of raping a girl also threatened to kill her if she told anyone about what happened, a court has heard.
Mark Anthony Spittal, 40, is on trial in the High Court at Whanganui before Justice Simon France, without a jury, facing 10 charges.
They include supplying a class C drug to a person under 18, rape, injuring with reckless disregard, male assaults female, threatening to kill, doing an indecent act on a young person and perverting the course of justice.
Crown prosecutor Harry Mallalieu said the girl, who has name suppression, was raped sometime between January and July 2011 and then in 2013 had an indecent act performed on her.
In a police interview played in court the girl described Spittal as doing ‘‘bad things to people’’.
She said on the evening of the alleged rape, at the house the pair were at, Spittal offered her a joint to smoke and then gave her a drink.
‘‘The drink tasted really weird, like he put something in it.’’
She felt sleepy and went to bed. When she woke up she realised Spittal had put a knife in the door of the room she was sleeping in, so nobody could get in the room. ‘‘Then he took my pants off.’’ She started crying and was told to ‘‘shut the f... up’’.
Spittal raped her, but stopped when she said she would tell someone, the girl said.
‘‘He said if I told anyone he would kill me.’’
The indecent act allegedly happened when Spittal was teaching the girl how to drive.
The girl denied defence lawyer Kevin Smith’s suggestion that her negative view of Spittal had rubbed off from others.
On the night of the alleged rape, Smith said Spittal’s partner was with him. She has said he stayed with her all evening in the lounge, while the girl slept in his room.
The girl said this was a lie and when told Spittal denied having the knife she said he put in the door, she said this was also untrue.
Smith asked if she was aware Spittal suffered from hepatitis C and chlamydia at the time.
The girl said she didn’t know that and when asked if she’d had any ill-effects, said she wasn’t aware of any.
The girl said she had pushed what had happened to one side to forget about it.
The trial continues.