Six years jail for rape of colleague
Cop in prison, one left police, three disciplined after lewd session
Apolice officer who raped a colleague at a Northland motel has been jailed for six years. Jamie Foster was sentenced yesterday afternoon in the Auckland District Court but the Herald has learned he remains employed by the police despite the sentence.
The reason for this, a police spokeswoman explained, was the ongoing employment investigation and process with Foster. “It is standard procedure that the employment process will commence once a criminal matter has been heard through the courts,” she said.
Despite still being employed, the Herald understands Foster is not being paid by police.
The 29-year-old’s two-week trial last month ended when the jury found the constable guilty of indecently assaulting and sexually violating his female workmate at a Kerikeri motel during the early hours of February 5 last year.
The North Shore officer was part of a group deployed to help police the 2019 Waitangi Day events at the Treaty Grounds. The group’s collective actions and lewd behaviour have caused severe embarrassment and questions over police culture.
After Foster, who has a young family, learned of the unanimous guilty verdicts he screamed in the courtroom: “It’s f ****** not fair! F****** bull ... !”
His family said: “The truth will come out.”
It remains to be seen whether Foster will appeal his convictions and sentence.
Foster’s victim, who has permanent name suppression, addressed her attacker’s cry for fairness.
“Let’s talk about fair, because somehow you still don’t get it, Jamie,” she told the court via video link. “It’s not fair you sexually violated me.”
She said Foster was “sick, self-entitled” and had arrogant needs, characteristics Crown prosecutor Fiona Culliney also described during the trial.
“I trusted you, I thought you were a nice person, a colleague, a team member and workmate,” the victim said.
“This is not a story of lies, regret or a false complaint, this is a story of sexual assault.”
During the trial, the victim described how she woke in her dark motel room to pain.
She reached for her phone and began recording a video. A one minute and 50 second interaction was recorded between her and Foster. “I’ve denied you earlier, and I’ve woken up to you f ****** me,” she can be heard crying.
CCTV footage also showed Foster walking across the motel courtyard at 2.34am and slowly opening the ranch slider door of his victim’s room.
“With a sense of entitlement, which he quite clearly has, he crept into her room and he raped her,” Culliney said.
During the case, Foster and his lawyer, Paul Borich, QC, claimed any sexual contact with the victim was consensual and a “prearranged hook-up”.
But Culliney said Foster “helped himself” to his colleague and Judge Thomas said the evidence left no doubt.
“You raped her as she slept,” he told Foster.
“She woke when she felt the pain,” Judge Thomas continued. “The rape stopped at that point, but as you have heard so graphically the trauma [for your victim] was just beginning. The harm that she will suffer in the future, she still does not yet know.”
More CCTV footage from the night also revealed lewd behaviour by several other police officers staying at the motel. It included footage of a senior sergeant exposing himself and a drinking game using a hollowed-out police baton.
Foster was stood down from the police after the allegations emerged and a separate employment investigation was conducted.
Crown lawyer Rebekah Thompson said Foster “brought the police force as a whole into disrepute”.
Borich, however, warned against his client becoming a scapegoat for all the detestable police actions at the motel.
After the trial, Superintendent Naila Hassan said four of the other officers were disciplined for behaving in a way which breached the police code of conduct.
“Three of them were dealt with within our disciplinary process and remain on active duty,” she said.
One officer is “no longer working for the New Zealand Police”.
A police spokeswoman said yesterday no further comment could be made about internal employment issues due to privacy obligations.
The truth will come out. Rapist’s family
Somehow you still don’t get it, Jamie. It’s not fair you sexually violated me. Victim