Claim juror was bully’s victim
A jury foreman bullied at high school went on to find the bully’s brother guilty of a ‘‘very bad’’ rape, an appeal hearing has been told.
But lawyer Ethan Huda had already been refused permission to have an independent lawyer ask the foreman questions about whether he recognised either brother and linked Brooke Christie Rolleston to his brother Dante Rolleston, who was said to have bullied him at school.
At the Court of Appeal in Wellington yesterday Huda agreed he could not show actual bias as a result but tried to argue the circumstances had the appearance of bias.
He said Dante Rolleston and the foreman were young men and events at high school might still have great meaning for them.
Dante Rolleston said in a written statement that he sat in the full public gallery of the Christchurch District Court from the second or third day of the nineday trial of his brother and another man.
He saw the foreman looking at him intently and thought he might know him but it was not until after the trial that he confirmed through school photographs that he had been at high school with the foreman until 2014 and had regularly verbally abused him.
Questioning of jurors was allowed only in exceptional cases and the Court of Appeal refused to allow it for the appeals of Brooke Rolleston and Brandon James Roche.
It said if the allegation was correct the foreman remembered Dante Rolleston, harboured a grudge and ‘‘visited the sins’’ of one brother on the other, and on Roche, and then influenced the other jurors against both.
The foreman would also have disregarded the judge’s directions for jurors to say if they knew either of the defendants, and to put aside feelings of sympathy and prejudice.
The evidence was ‘‘very tenuous’’ and was no basis for alleging the foreman was biased or improperly influenced other jurors, the court had said.
Rolleston and Roche were found guilty of raping and sexually violating a grossly drunk 15-year-old girl. They had carried her from the bedroom where her boyfriend had put her for her protection because of her state, and abused her in an empty bedroom. They said she consented to having sex with them.
The sentencing judge said they knew she was too drunk to be able to consent.
Rolleston was jailed for 11 years and two months, and Roche for 10 years and nine months. The Court of Appeal reserved its decision on their appeals against conviction and sentence.
Justice Forrie Miller, presiding over the three member Court of Appeal, said it had been a bad case. ‘‘This is very predatory offending. This was very bad offending. There is no getting away from that.’’
Huda argued Rolleston and Roche, who were both 20 at the time they were sentenced in August 2017, should have received lighter sentences to take account of their youth.
Crown lawyer Simon Barr said impulsivity was the critical factor for giving a sentencing discount based on youth. But the sentencing judge had found Rolleston and Roche had built up to the offence.