Sexual abuse complainant says allegations not imagined

THE counsel for a Clinton man accused of sexually abusing three young girls has suggested to one that it was all in her head.

The complainant told the jury at the Dunedin District Court trial yesterday that she was not lying.

‘‘Why do I wake up having nightmares and body pains as if it's happening all over again? I've got PTSD . . . that's not me making it up,’’ she said.

Richard Joseph Wekking (63) — whose name suppression lapsed yesterday — faces 38 charges spanning the 1980s and 1990s, featuring three girls, one of whom was at kindergarten at the time.

The most serious of the allegations are five charges of rape and one of attempted rape, amid many counts of indecency.

The first complainant's video interview with police was played in court on Monday.

She described Wekking making up games to hide his abusive intentions and regularly playing pornographic movies.

‘‘He said I was his special girl and it was our secret,’’ she said.

Shortly after the alleged assaults began, she confided in her sister who took her to police.

But after making a statement, the woman told officers she had fabricated the allegations.

More than a decade later, as a teenager, the complainant wrote to Wekking apologising.

‘‘Dear Ricky, I just thought that I'd write a wee letter to you. I just wanted to say to you I'm sorry for what I said about you . . . I just thought that I remembered things that happened. I'm not blaming you as it's probably all in my head,’’ the letter said.

Counsel John Westgate suggested the letter revealed the truth.

However the complainant said she had written it ‘‘under duress’’ and a social worker had dictated exactly what she should say.

‘‘This has been used to keep me silenced since I was 19. It's all a load of garbage. I'm not sorry for what I said and I never will be,’’ the woman told the jury under crossexamination yesterday.

‘‘All I want is my day in court and for him to know what he did to me. It's been used to keep me quiet but I won't be quiet any more.’’

Mr Westgate said the allegations were lies or memories that had been constructed many years since the complainant's childhood.

The woman disagreed.

‘‘I made the biggest mistake of my life letting him get away with it for so long but he's not going to get away with it any more,’’ she said.

‘‘All I want to do is to get on with my life and have him pay for what he's done.’’

The second complainant told the court yesterday that Wekking raped her and would violate her with a range of household items.

‘‘He kept telling me I was pretty,’’ she said in her police interview.

The woman recalled the strange physical and emotional feelings she experienced during the time of the alleged abuse, the smell of Old Spice aftershave.

When she reacted with disgust to some of the incidents, Wekking allegedly told her: ‘‘that's what big people do’’.

The woman also described genital examinations by the defendant which occurred as often as once a week.

Wekking said he was ‘‘checking I was clean’’, she said.

She, too, recalled being shown adult films regularly by the defendant.

‘‘It was just like watching a comedy, really,’’ she said. ‘‘[I was] encouraged to watch porn.’’

The third complainant, who is the subject of two charges, will give evidence later this week.

The trial, before Judge Michael Crosbie and a jury of six men and six women, is expected to end next week.