Banker found guilty of raping sleeping woman

A man claimed he thought he was in bed with his girlfriend when he raped a sleeping woman after a night out.

The man’s family was in tears and comforting each other in the back of the court as Christchurch District Court Judge Paul Kellar delivered his verdict yesterday, three days after the two-day judge-alone trial.

He said the verdict would have come as a ‘‘significant shock’’ to the man, and told him prison was the inevitable outcome.

A group of men had played rugby on May 13, 2018, and then went socialising. They ended up at a Christchurch house, drinking and watching television, and eventually the defendant went to bed there.

He claimed he mistakenly got into bed with the married woman who lived there, while she was asleep, and when he woke later he mistakenly had sex with her, believing she was his girlfriend.

Judge Kellar said that the man had taken ecstasy and had been drinking. The effects of the ecstasy had worn off, he said.

‘‘I do not consider that he was so affected by alcohol that he did not know what he was doing.’’

The woman said she was a deep sleeper and woke to find someone having sex with her. She had thought it was her husband at first.

Judge Kellar told the man: ‘‘I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that at no stage did the complainant consent to the sexual activity that occurred, and that you didn’t believe – let alone on reasonable grounds – that she was consenting.

‘‘This is a case where you – disinhibited by alcohol but not so affected that you didn’t know what you were doing – have done something that you would never have done sober.’’

‘‘I do not consider that he was so affected by alcohol that he did not know what he was doing.’’

Judge Kellar granted bail and remanded the man for sentencing on September 30.

He allowed defence counsel Nicola Hansen’s request for continued interim suppression until sentencing. She asked for the suppression so further members of the man’s family and his bank employers could be told.

Crown prosecutor Karyn South said continued suppression was opposed, and the judge said final suppression of the man’s name was unlikely.