Gautam is accused of touching the woman\u2019s breasts, touching her genital area, and moving her face towards him and kissing her on the lips.<\/p>\n
The complainant has automatic name suppression. <\/p>\n
Gautam took the woman to his house on the pretence of giving her a driving lesson.<\/p>\n
Soon after arriving, the complainant alleged Gautam made her take her top off and spent between 20 and 30 minutes grabbing and fondling her breasts as they sat on his bed, before putting his hand down her pants.<\/p>\n
\u2018He thought he might have a romantic interlude\u2019<\/p>\n
Gautam\u2019s lawyer, Philip Morgan, KC, told the jury his client was a \u201cfoolish man thinking that he might have a romantic interlude with the complainant\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the complainant was not interested in him romantically at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
He urged the jury to focus on what happened. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, the defendant accepts that he did touch the breasts of the complainant.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe does, for example, accept that he did kiss the complainant, but it wasn\u2019t on the lips … it was on her cheek at her request.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Gautam denied touching her genitals.<\/p>\n
He urged the jury to consider the elements of the charge and whether, as right-thinking members of the community, Gautam\u2019s actions were indecent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defence case is … that the defendant actually thought that – and you may think very foolishly – that the woman was a willing participant in what took place.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he had no appreciation that what was happening here was distasteful to her, and thus, when you are considering these charges … he didn\u2019t appreciate what he was doing … would be regarded as indecent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018He shut the door, the curtains, turned the lights out\u2019<\/p>\n
In outlining the Crown case, prosecutor Amy Alcock told the jury of six women and six men that it was relevant to note the defendant\u2019s wife and daughter were overseas at the time. <\/p>\n
As Gautam and the complainant drove to his house, he asked her if she trusted him, and then began trying to hold her hand.<\/p>\n
When they arrived, he drove his car straight into his garage, closing the door behind them.<\/p>\n
The woman was \u201cunderstandably\u201d confused but agreed to go into his house.<\/p>\n
There, he grabbed two wine glasses, a bottle of \u201cchilled red wine\u201d, and said he would take her on a tour of the house.<\/p>\n
However, he led her straight to his bedroom, which was on the second floor of the house, closing the door behind him.<\/p>\n
He then closed the curtains and turned on the television, providing the only source of light in the room.<\/p>\n
Rahul Gautam, owner of Hamilton Dental Emergency Centre, is on trial fighting three charges of indecent assault from an alleged incident in March 2024. Image \/ Google Maps<\/p>\n
He sat on the bed, while the complainant, who was uncomfortable, remained standing and making comments about the nice things that were in his room.<\/p>\n
Gautam asked the complainant to sit on the bed.<\/p>\n
She said, \u201cNo\u201d, but he persisted, and she ultimately agreed, sitting as far away as possible from him.<\/p>\n
He kept telling her to relax, gave her a glass of wine, and slowly began moving closer to her.<\/p>\n
He tried to grab her hand, but she pulled it away, and he asked her to remove her top. <\/p>\n
She refused, but he persisted, and she ultimately agreed and was left wearing her singlet.<\/p>\n
Gautam then moved closer to her, leaned on her chest and began rubbing her stomach, and put his hand under her singlet and grabbed and fondled her breasts.<\/p>\n
She moved his hand away and asked him to stop. Gautam said he was \u201csorry\u201d.<\/p>\n
But he moved towards her again, touching her stomach and breasts.<\/p>\n
Feeling stuck, she suggested they go out on to his balcony to get some fresh air.<\/p>\n
In her evidence, the complainant said Gautam mentioned they used to have \u201clots of chickens and lots of ducks, but they just eat and poop everywhere\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo most of them were shot, and some of them were released into the wild.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him I wasn\u2019t a big fan … of killing animals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gautam said it was okay and reassured her that he hadn\u2019t shot any of them, but said that he did have a gun in the house.<\/p>\n
Hamilton dentist Rahul Gautam, left, leaves the Hamilton District Court this afternoon. Photo \/ Belinda Feek<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said that very directly and then insisted that we go back inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
After she finished her first glass of wine, Gautam insisted that she have another.<\/p>\n
She said she didn\u2019t want to, but was given another one anyway.<\/p>\n
\u2018I just wanted to get out of there\u2019<\/p>\n
With almost every question, she tried to divert her answers back to her husband and told him that she was loyal to him and that she would never do anything to hurt him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said he was loyal to his wife, too. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt that point, it didn\u2019t really feel like it, considering the circumstances, but I felt like I was stuck and didn\u2019t really have a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The complainant said the breast touching went on for about 20 or 30 minutes.<\/p>\n
At one point, when they were sitting on the bed, he put his hand down her pants.<\/p>\n
She removed it and commented that it was sunset and that she should be going home.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said \u2018No, just stay a bit longer\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t really want to stay longer, but I didn\u2019t feel like I had a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gautam then said once she\u2019d finished her wine, they could leave, so she finished it.<\/p>\n
However, he got a second bottle and gave her another glass.<\/p>\n
\u201cI drank it as fast as I could because I just wanted to get out of there.\u201d<\/p>\n
After about another 10 or 15 minutes, Gautam said they could leave.<\/p>\n
They began leaving, and she noted in her interview that he had a hydroslide in his backyard, which she thought was \u201cfricken weird\u201d.<\/p>\n
Gautam also told her that he had two living rooms, one of which was for \u201cmore higher-class people\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
As they went to walk into the garage, he stood in front of the door and wouldn\u2019t let her through until she kissed him on the lips.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe kept trying, and I would move my face, and then he moved my face [and kissed me].\u201d<\/p>\n
Two minutes after arriving home, she told her husband what happened.<\/p>\n
Shortly afterwards, she received a text from Gautam, \u201cbasically suggesting round two\u201d.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t see Gautam again, and instead went away for the weekend before going to police.<\/p>\n
The trial, overseen by Judge Tini Clark, is set down for three days and involves five witnesses.<\/p>\n
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gautam is accused of touching the woman\u2019s breasts, touching her genital area, and moving her face towards him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1117,150844,33606,150843,150840,150842,1364,44324,111,43,139,69,1118,150841,1524,5816],"class_list":{"0":"post-263691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-accused","9":"tag-breasts","10":"tag-dentist","11":"tag-fondling","12":"tag-foolish","13":"tag-gautam","14":"tag-her","15":"tag-kissing","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz","20":"tag-of","21":"tag-rahul","22":"tag-waikato","23":"tag-womans"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}