Mystery texter ‘implausible’

‘Who is this mystery person . . . if not her? It just doesn’t add up.’ Crown prosecutor Dale La Hood

CLAIMS that a teacher charged with sexually abusing a schoolboy lost the cellphone used to communicate with her alleged victim are ‘‘implausible’’, a jury has heard.

In his closing argument in the High Court in Wellington yesterday, Crown prosecutor Dale La Hood said the teacher was asking the court to believe that some mystery person had stolen her phone repeatedly for brief periods and used it to conduct a relationship with the boy.

This was despite her admission that she had used the phone to text someone within eight seconds of the phone also being used to text the boy, he said.

The woman, whose name is suppressed, has pleaded not guilty to 15 sex abuse charges, which span more than three years from 2011, when the boy was 10 years old.

During the time the boy was receiving texts from the phone, many details were included implicating the teacher, including the name of her relatives, and the area where she lived, La Hood said.

‘‘Who is this mystery person . . . if not her? It just doesn’t add up.’’

Other details also undermined the teacher’s denials that the relationship took place, with her testimony containing ‘‘no ring of truth’’, La Hood said.

These included: The boy’s detailed recollection of a motel room where he said the pair had sex. The teacher said she had slept alone and denied having sex with the boy.

The teacher’s claim a topless photograph of her found on another boy’s phone was taken by an ex-partner, not the alleged victim. The ex-partner gave evidence that he had never seen the photograph.

Shifting accounts of her actions after discovering the boy had told other children they were having sex. On Wednesday, she said she had not told anyone, but yesterday said she told another teacher.

But the teacher’s lawyer, Stephen Iorns, said the only evidence really supporting the allegations was the word of a boy, who was a self-confessed liar.

‘‘Not one scrap of evidence puts them alone together, except for the words of a troubled child.’’

There was no physical evidence supporting the abuse, no financial evidence supporting claims she gave him money, and no digital evidence conclusively linking the pair.

Some evidence from the boy and other witnesses about the text messages was not supported by the messages themselves, which should be discounted completely, he said.

‘‘Due to the absence of real police work, we have an abundance of doubt.’’

Since the trial started on Monday, the court has heard allegations that the woman and the boy had sex once when he was 12, performed other sex acts, kissed and shared intimate photos and text messages during the three-year period.

On Tuesday, the boy, who is now 14, told the jury they had sex in a Paraparaumu hotel the day before Waitangi Day last year. At the time, he was 12.

There was also evidence given that she was ‘‘needy and emotional’’, jealously controlling the boy and even threatening to go public with their relationship to gain compliance.

But the woman said yesterday she had ‘‘no idea’’ why the boy had made such claims about her, calling him cunning and manipulative.

‘‘I, as a mother, have been accused of doing something like this. That is why I’m upset.’’

The judge will instruct the jury this morning, before it retires to deliberate.