Court told of plan to rape teenager
A MAN who twice broke into homes and raped women had chosen an Upper Hutt teenager as his next victim, a jury has been told.
The Crown says that in 2010 Justin Ames Johnston had been spending time in the area where a 16-year-old occupied a sleepout behind her family’s home.
A lawyer for Johnston said that the 43-year-old had been charged with attempted sexual violation because of his history, not what he was doing on the back section of the property on July 19, 2010.
Lawyer Brendan Horsley said Johnston was there to ‘‘steal stuff’’, but the Crown argued that Johnston had a sexual fascination with young females and was planning to sexually violate the girl in the sleepout.
Johnston has pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted sexual violation.
A jury of 10 women and two men in the High Court at Wellington was told yesterday that Johnston was seen several metres from the sleepout in the evening when the teenager’s father was collecting firewood.
The father chased Johnston and caught him on a nearby property but let him go when Johnston threatened him with something like a small garden fork, Crown prosecutor Grant Burston said.
A police dog tracked Johnston soon after.
After his arrest police discovered that Johnston had a history of committing intruderrapes.
The first was of a 26-year-old in 1993 and the second was of a 15-year-old in 1994.
In 2006, while in prison at Paremoremo, Johnston is alleged to have spoken to another inmate about plans to kidnap the daughter of a bank manager and rape her. The inmate gave prison authorities a planning list that Johnston had written for the rape.
After Johnston was freed from prison in 2009, he was boarding in the Lower Hutt suburb of Belmont.
A man he met at the boarding house is expected to give evidence that Johnston appeared to be obsessed with young girls and said he wanted to kidnap and rape a 14 or 15-year-old.
Mr Horsley told the jury that Johnston was charged with attempted sexual violation because of his history, not what he was doing the night he was caught in Upper Hutt.
Mr Horsley said the defence case was that Johnston was broke, had bills to pay, was desperate to get money and wanted to steal stuff.
If jurors looked at the evidence dispassionately they could not conclude that Johnston was there to enter the sleepout and rape the girl, he said.
Police constructed the case around Johnston, not around the evidence, Mr Horsley said.
He asked the jurors not to be swayed by prejudice against Johnston because of what he had done previously.
Johnston’s trial is due to end this week.