The complainant, now an adult, alleged woman had sexually abused him in the early 2000s while he was babysitting her children at her house and sleeping over.
He described alleged incidents of sexual intercourse, oral sex and sexual touching.
But the woman claimed the boy was the one who’d made sexual advances and she’d rebuffed him.
Both denied the other’s version of events.
The woman told the court that the allegations the man described couldn’t have happened because she was living with her father, who has since died, at the time, and he was responsible for the childcare and running the house, while she was at work.
The man alleged that the sexual intercourse took place at weekends, which was the only time he was allowed to stay over at the woman’s house.
But the woman told the court that she, her father and her children left the capital every weekend to visit a relative who lived outside of Wellington.
On Friday, Judge Bill Hastings handed down his decision in the Wellington District Court on the five charges of sexual violation and two counts of doing an indecent act on a young person.
The judge found the woman not guilty on all charges, releasing his reasons in writing.
In that written decision, the judge said he wasn’t satisfied that the prosecution had proved beyond a reasonable doubt the complainant’s allegations that he was sexually assaulted by the defendant in the way the Crown alleges.
I am left with reasonable doubt
Judge Hastings said he had concerns about the reliability of witnesses, including the prosecution witnesses.
“I have expressed concerns about the credibility of the prosecution witnesses, and the effect of the passage of time on the defence’s ability to mount an effective defence.”
The judge said the defence had adduced sufficient credible evidence to narrow the opportunity for the defendant to have offended in the ways alleged.
As a result, he said he couldn’t be sure that the complainant was sexually assaulted in the way the prosecution alleged, while accepting the defendant’s account “seems a reasonable possibility”.
“The defence evidence as a whole has left me unsure about the credibility and reliability of the prosecution case. I am left with reasonable doubt.”
After the decision, the woman hugged a supporter. The complainant and his supporters weren’t in the courtroom but were watching proceedings via audiovisual link from another room in the courthouse.
The woman’s name suppression was continued until a hearing next week, when the judge will decide if her name will be permanently suppressed.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently, she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.