{"id":265303,"date":"2026-02-03T09:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T09:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/265303\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T09:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T09:46:07","slug":"woman-questioned-whether-she-expressed-distate-over-dentist-rahul-gautums-alleged-indecencies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/265303\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman questioned whether she \u2018expressed distate\u2019 over dentist, Rahul Gautum\u2019s alleged indecencies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The complainant<\/a>, alleges that Gautam, persistently tried to get her on to his bed, and after she did sit on the bed, his persistent behaviour continued with him trying to touch her breasts, and, at one point, touching her genitals.<\/p>\n

She also alleges he moved her face to kiss his as they left his house to drop her home.<\/p>\n

Morgan said Gautam accepted that he touched the complainant\u2019s breast and tried to kiss her, but is defending the charges on the basis that he didn\u2019t realise the complainant was not willing.<\/p>\n

The complainant has automatic name suppression.<\/p>\n

\u2018You know you\u2019re not having a driving lesson\u2019<\/p>\n

Morgan put to the woman in cross-examination that Gautam told her when they got into his car, before they drove off, that \u201cYou know you\u2019re not having a driving lesson\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot at that point,\u201d the complainant replied.<\/p>\n

He put to her that her response was, \u201cYeah, pretty much\u201d, but she denied that.<\/p>\n

Morgan put to her that as he held her hand on the drive to his house, she never displayed \u201cany signs of distaste\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was nervous, and at that time I thought he was just comforting me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

He asked if she thought she should pull her hand away from his.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to be disrespectful,\u201d she responded.<\/p>\n

\"HamiltonHamilton dentist Rahul Gautam, left, leaves the Hamilton District Court yesterday. Photo \/ Belinda Feek<\/p>\n

He said Gautam will give evidence that he never asked her to stay the night, and never threatened to get her so drunk that she couldn\u2019t say no.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is incorrect,\u201d the complainant replied.<\/p>\n

She said his threat of getting her drunk \u201cconstantly plays back in my mind\u201d.<\/p>\n

Morgan said Gautam would also testify that he joked that a \u201ctrophy\u201d on the wall of his stairwell was a \u201cwild sheep\u201d, but she had corrected him, instead saying it was a tahr.<\/p>\n

He would also testify that the only kiss that happened was on the bed, and that she had offered him her cheek, but she denied that.<\/p>\n

Morgan asked if she gave Gautam a kiss on the cheek after he dropped her off, but she said no.<\/p>\n

\u2018Let\u2019s go to my bedroom\u2019<\/p>\n

Arriving at his house, grabbing the wine glasses and wine, Gautam will give evidence that he said to her, \u201cLet\u2019s go up to my bedroom\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, he didn\u2019t say that,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was going to do a tour of the house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you were in the bedroom and lay on the bed, did you do anything to indicate to him your distaste for being there?\u201d Morgan asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI inched away from him, and I did say \u2018No\u2019, and \u2018Stop\u2019, and \u2018Don\u2019t touch me like that\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morgan asked her if she did anything to display her distaste, apart from one occasion that Gautram touched her breast.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe touched me multiple times,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n

Morgan quizzed her about what she told her husband.<\/p>\n

She said that she initially told him limited information as she was worried about his mental health, and didn\u2019t want to stress him out.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you feel that what actually happened … was not serious enough for a complaint to police so when you did … you have exaggerated the extent to which Mr Gautam behaved toward you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is incorrect,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n

In re-examination, Crown prosecutor Amy Alcock asked her again why she didn\u2019t call her husband while Gautam was out of the room, grabbing more wine.<\/p>\n

She said she didn\u2019t know how long he was going to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was panicking in my head, so I didn\u2019t know how to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a question from Judge Tini Clark about how much she had told her husband that night, the woman said she \u201cdrip-fed more information to him about what happened over time\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018We weren\u2019t going to play snakes and ladders\u2019<\/p>\n

In his DVD interview with Detective Karl Prendergast, Gautam said he didn\u2019t think the complainant would even take up his offer of a driving lesson as he only had his restricted licence himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought she would politely decline,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Walking up the stairs to his room, Gautam said he asked the woman if it was \u201cokay if we go to the bedroom\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said, \u2018Okay, I don\u2019t mind\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

On his super king bed, he asked her if he could kiss her, \u201cand she didn\u2019t say yes and didn\u2019t say no\u201d.<\/p>\n

He then leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.<\/p>\n

After a couple of glasses of wine, Gautam told Prendergast the complainant \u201cwas getting a bit more relaxed\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cA bit more uninhibited. Time passed really quickly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gautam said he asked her if she was feeling okay, and she said she was.<\/p>\n

Asked by Prendergast why he asked that, Gautam said it was because he had a female coming to his house for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously not to play snakes and ladders.\u201d <\/p>\n

The trial, set down for three days, continues.<\/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":"The complainant, alleges that Gautam, persistently tried to get her on to his bed, and after she did…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1554,33606,151380,39539,151381,151382,111,43,139,69,1523,14904,150841,20863,14905,1354],"class_list":["post-265303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-alleged","tag-dentist","tag-distate","tag-expressed","tag-gautums","tag-indecencies","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-questioned","tag-rahul","tag-she","tag-whether","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265303","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=265303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}