Cop denies sexual assaults
Two accusers say detective turned up uninvited with alcohol before assaulting them
Asenior detective yesterday denied sexually assaulting two women while he was part of separate criminal investigations over a decade ago. Kevin Stephen Burke, a detective inspector in Northland, faces two charges of indecent assault and two of unlawful sexual connection.
The alleged offending happened in 2002 and 2003 when Burke was a detective in the Auckland region and the two women met him during criminal investigations.
Burke stood in the dock in the High Court at Auckland to plead not guilty to all charges.
In her opening statement to the jury, Crown prosecutor Jo Murdoch said the accusers were unconnected and from “very different worlds and led very different lives”.
“The Crown says the complainants have one thing in common — the defendant sexually assaulted them after they put their trust and confidence in him.”
The first complainant was similar in age to Burke, in her 40s, while the second complainant was in her 20s at the time of the alleged offending.
The older woman met Burke in 2002 to discuss her dealings with a fraudster he was investigating. A few weeks later, the Crown says, he turned up uninvited at her Auckland home one evening.
He had a box of beer and a bottle of wine, said Murdoch, and they talked for several hours on the deck at her home.
The woman did not drink but thought Burke was too drunk to drive. So she offered him a bed in the spare room, where he allegedly began to kiss her. Murdoch told the jury he overpowered her, pinned her arms above her head, and digitally penetrated her.
She broke free and spent a sleepless night in her own room, said Murdoch, as Burke stayed the night in the spare room. The alleged attack was recorded in the woman’s diary, although she did not make a complaint at the time.
“She didn’t want to be a victim, and got on with her life,” said Murdoch, adding the woman never saw Burke again about the fraudster.
Burke’s defence counsel, Arthur Fairley, presented a different narrative. Fairley said his client was invited to the woman’s home, the sexual contact was consensual, and the pair met for coffee and dinner — even after
the alleged assault. He said Burke had no sexual contact “at any stage, shape, or form” with the second complainant. She was much younger, in her 20s, and in a violent relationship with a notorious criminal.
Burke was in charge of investigating an assault in which a woman was stabbed by her partner. An entry in Burke’s notebook calculated their age difference — 19 years — at one of their first meetings, Murdoch said.
“An indication of his state of mind when he first met the complainant,” the Crown prosecutor said.
The second complainant was in a “bad place” with her volatile lifestyle, said Murdoch, and saw Burke as a caring, professional officer.
But Murdoch said others, who would be called as witnesses, thought Burke’s support of the woman “blurred professional lines”.
The complainant and Burke continued to keep in touch, as she faced her own criminal charges.
The jury was told the detective turned up at her home one Friday evening with wine and a pizza.
They were joined by the woman’s older flatmate, but the complainant went to bed feeling the effects of the alcohol. The Crown says Burke entered her room, undressed, got in bed with her, then rubbed his groin up and down her back, before falling asleep.
Burke returned a few weeks later, pinned her against the wall, groped her buttocks and breast and ground his groin into her, the Crown alleges.
On a third occasion, the Crown says he exposed himself to the woman, then forcibly performed oral sex on her.
She later moved to Australia and, with the distance of time, in 2017 made a formal complaint about Burke’s alleged sexual behaviour.
When interviewed by police about each complainant twice, Burke denied any sexual impropriety with the second complainant. He said the sexual contact with the first was consensual.
Burke, 61, was suspended in April 2017 when a criminal investigation began, run by detectives based in Christchurch, before the criminal charges were laid that December.
The trial before Justice Sarah Katz is scheduled to last two weeks.
She didn’t want to be a victim, and got on with herlife. Jo Murdoch, prosecutor