Tinder trap accused ‘a gentleman’
A woman told a police investigator her Tinder date set a ‘‘trap’’ for her, taking her to a Wellington hotel and raping her as she slept.
But the rape accused’s lawyer said his client was a ‘‘gentleman’’, who never enticed the woman to the hotel.
Wellington man Amitesh Kumar pleaded not guilty yesterday to one charge of sexual violation by rape.
The Crown said Kumar urged the woman to ‘‘drink faster’’ after meeting her in the city in March 2015.
The woman had moved to New Zealand from abroad shortly before matching with Kumar on the app.
The pair exchanged messages for about six days before meeting at the waterfront and going for a drive, visiting the South Coast, then an inner-city pub and hotel.
Pablo Hamber and Matthew Ferrier appeared as lawyers for the Crown.
Hamber said Kumar drove the vehicle, giving the complainant alcohol, and ‘‘encouraged her to drink it quickly’’.
The complainant said she later lost consciousness. Hamber said the woman came to, and asked Kumar if he had had sex with her, but was told he had not.
Texts exchanged afterward suggested otherwise, and a medical exam found semen, with what Hamber called an ‘‘extremely strong’’ link to Kumar’s DNA.
‘‘We got out of the car and sat somewhere by the sea,’’ the complainant told an investigator in an interview played to the court.
She said Kumar asked if she knew many people in New Zealand, or anybody who could help her in an emergency.
She remembered dancing at a pub before going to the hotel.
At the hotel, she at some point found herself in bed with Kumar.
‘‘I was naked. He was close, I was horrified . . . I asked him ‘Did you do anything?’’’
She believed the Tinder date was ‘‘a trap just to have sex’’, and suspected one of her drinks at the club was spiked.
But defence lawyer Karun Lakshman told the jury: ‘‘This is not a case in which the defendant had enticed the complainant into going out with him.’’
He said the pair agreed to meet and go out ‘‘for a social evening’’ which lasted longer than Kumar anticipated.
By about 11.30pm both were feeling inebriated, and Kumar did not want to drive home drunk from the city.
Lakshman said the woman wanted to drink more but the pair could not get more liquor so chose to rest for a while – ‘‘sober up if you like’’ – before going their separate ways. ‘‘He didn’t force her to drink.’’ He said there was no dispute that the sex act took place but Kumar said it was consensual.
The woman asked Kumar if she needed an emergency contraceptive.
Kumar told police later that he did not remember having sex, but did not think he had done so.
‘‘That’s not a denial, it’s simply saying, ‘As far as I can remember nothing happened’.’’
The trial at Wellington District Court is expected to last at least three days.