‘Married to a monster’

He was a thief in the night, wife says of aggressive attacks her husband claimed he could not remember

A MAN who claimed he was having sex with his wife while fast asleep has been found guilty of rape.

The man, 42, who has name suppression, was convicted last month of raping and indecently assaulting his wife over a fiveyear period.

Part of his defence involved claims of suffering from a rare disorder called sexsomnia, where a person engages in sexual behaviour while asleep.

His 44-year-old former wife, who also cannot be named, says at first she chose to believe her husband, rather than accept she was married to a ‘‘monster’’.

But as his aggressive nightly attacks increased, she became convinced he was lying to her, and that she was being raped.

She is now appealing to other women to seek help over intermarriage rape, a phenomenon all too common according to Women’s Refuge.

Speaking ahead of her former husband’s sentencing in November, the woman said they were married in 2007, after a traditional Christian courtship where there was no sexual contact. But soon after the wedding, her husband became extremely sexually active.

Five months into their marriage the woman awoke to find her husband pinning her down and engaging in aggressive sex.

‘‘He was a thief in the night,’’ she said. ‘‘There are a lot of things I feel robbed of. It feels more of a theft than a rape.’’

The following day she confronted her husband, who claimed he had no recollection of the attack.

Her husband reassured her he would research why he had acted in such a way, later sending her news articles on sexsomnia.

She initially believed her husband was a victim of the disorder, but when the attacks became more frequent she was concerned that he was awake during the episodes.

‘‘Over time I started raising questions like ‘If you can’t remember it, how come?’,’’ she said.

‘‘It was easier to believe I was married to someone who had a sleep disorder, than I was married to a monster who would do this to me knowingly.

‘‘It wasn’t like I was just attacked. I was attacked over a period of time by somebody who I thought was trustworthy.’’

To avoid the incidents the woman would dress in several layers of clothing, or sleep on the couch, she said.

‘‘If I was overdressing he would say I was distancing myself emotionally.’’

In October 2012, after seeking help from three medical professionals, the couple separated and the woman laid a complaint with police.

The woman, a former Aucklander who now lives in Wellington, said people needed to be aware where the line of consent was drawn within relationships.

‘‘It took me a long time for me to define it was rape. I didn’t want to put a name to it. When I broke it down and said, ‘Well, was intercourse forced on you without your consent?’ it was.

‘‘If there is anything nonconsensual then the person who is doing it should be seeking help. In my case I was making excuses.’’

Women’s Refuge chief executive Dr Ang Jury said abuse and manipulation of women within marriage was prevalent.

‘‘I think it is exceedingly common, if you think about the way domestic violence works, why would someone stop at controlling everything else about someone’s life, and not control their body.

‘‘It goes without saying, it’s so common it’s not common.’’

There needed to be a change in the way rape and sexual violence was defined, Jury said.

‘‘We have this notion of rape still – I don’t know why it persists – that it is something that is committed with violence, generally by a stranger or by bad people. ‘‘In reality, coerced sexual contact, whether you are doing it because you are scared or because it’s the only way to keep the peace, is rape or sexual violence.’’

The man’s lawyer, Paul Dacre, QC, said his client denied any coercion, claiming all sexual contact was consensual.

‘‘He would say, anything I did while I was awake was consensual; if she did not consent to anything I must have been asleep,’’ Dacre said.

Hugh Leavourn, a criminal barrister with Guardian Chambers in Auckland, said that it would be extremely difficult to prove sexsomnia as a defence for rape.

‘‘You are almost running the defence of automatism – it’s a classic criminal defence.’’

While it was available as a defence it was generally rejected.

The man was found guilty by a jury in the Auckland District Court in August of sexual violation by rape, indecent assault, and a representative charge of indecent assault.

He was remanded in custody till sentencing in December.