{"id":423402,"date":"2026-05-12T05:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T05:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/423402\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T05:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T05:43:08","slug":"wellington-rape-trial-husband-claims-wife-initiated-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/423402\/","title":{"rendered":"Wellington rape trial: Husband claims wife initiated sex"},"content":{"rendered":"

She says he took advantage<\/a> while she was drowsy from her sleeping medication, leaving the living room where she believed he was sleeping and climbing onto the bed in the master bedroom. <\/p>\n

The next morning, they had sex again. <\/p>\n

\u201cI awoke to him on top of me again. I just let him do what he wanted to do, and afterwards he said, \u2018That\u2018s all you need is more sex<\/a>\u2018,\u201d she earlier testified during a trial in the Wellington District Court<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The man, who has name suppression, is charged with assault on a person in a family relationship, two charges of threatening to kill and three charges of rape.<\/p>\n

During the judge-alone trial, which is now in its second week, the court has heard conflicting evidence. <\/p>\n

The man maintains it was his wife who initiated sex that night, and again in the morning.<\/p>\n

He says that after sex, they both fell asleep. He awoke, relieved because they\u2019d been intimate after weeks of tension, including talk of couples counselling to try to salvage their marriage. <\/p>\n

\u201cI said if we keep doing this, we\u2019ll be okay,\u201d he recalls telling his wife. <\/p>\n

But he also told the court during the conversation that his wife had told him the sex the night before \u201cwas nice for those who wanted it\u201d.<\/p>\n

The man told the court the comment frightened him, because it wasn\u2019t consistent with what had happened. <\/p>\n

But having made it, he says, it was his wife who then initiated sex in the morning. <\/p>\n

The woman says the marriage was unhappy, coercive, and controlling from the get-go. <\/p>\n

He says it was a loving, mutual marriage, where they supported each other\u2019s endeavours, until the last few years when her mental health deteriorated. <\/p>\n

He denies ever raping, assaulting, sexually violating or threatening to kill his then-wife. <\/p>\n

\u201cHave you ever had sex with her against her will at all?\u201d his lawyer Lucie Scott asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d he replied. <\/p>\n

To support his case, he\u2019s provided hundreds of messages the pair exchanged on various forums, including Facebook, WhatsApp, and email.<\/p>\n

She told the court that the regular communication was to assess and manage his moods.<\/p>\n

He says it was just part of a normal, loving relationship. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve weathered some nightmares in our 17 years together; this is by far the worst, but I don\u2019t want to give up on it,\u201d one of his messages said. <\/p>\n

You did get angry regularly, didn\u2019t you? <\/p>\n

But the Crown suggests the man wasn\u2019t as supportive as he\u2019s claimed, and the wife\u2019s account is the truthful one. <\/p>\n

At one stage, she\u2019d messaged her husband saying; \u201cI\u2019m tired of worrying when you\u2019ll next get angry\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s because you did get angry regularly, didn\u2019t you?\u201d Crown prosecutor Anselm Williams suggested, something the man denied. <\/p>\n

Williams also asked about the sex in the master bedroom. The man told the court his wife had initially agreed to spend the night away from the house, but instead ended up sleeping in their bed.<\/p>\n

It was the first night they\u2019d spent together in weeks, and the evening had gone really well, he said. <\/p>\n

Because of the way events had unfolded that evening, he said, he felt comfortable getting into bed with her, after which she had initiated sex. <\/p>\n

After that, they fell asleep, with the man admitting that he woke in the morning feeling good. <\/p>\n

\u201cI felt loved,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

In response to questions by Williams, he agreed that his wife\u2019s comment had frightened him, because it suggested his wife hadn\u2019t consented to sex. <\/p>\n

But he believed she had consented, telling the court he wouldn\u2019t have had sex with his wife if she didn\u2019t want it. <\/p>\n

Asked by Williams why he had sex the next morning, when his wife had suggested she hadn\u2019t consented the night before, he said his wife had initiated it. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe has complete control of the situation, and I did go along with it,\u201d adding that he saw it as a positive sign. <\/p>\n

But Williams put to the man that despite being told to stop, he\u2019d pulled his wife\u2019s pyjama bottoms down. <\/p>\n

The man disagreed, saying his wife had lifted her hips so he could get them off. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou told her what she needed was to have more sex,\u201d Williams said. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I said if we kept doing this, we would be okay,\u201d the man responded. <\/p>\n

Tomorrow, counsel will sum up before Judge Noel Sainsbury, who is expected to reserve his decision. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She says he took advantage while she was drowsy from her sleeping medication, leaving the living room where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1554,2562,181,10109,51030,170633,111,43,139,69,145840,28703,34458,6289,7680,17703,544,427,1961,54,1455,52,1842],"class_list":["post-423402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-alleged","tag-claims","tag-details","tag-husband","tag-includes","tag-initiated","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-offend","tag-offending","tag-rape","tag-readers","tag-sex","tag-sexual","tag-some","tag-story","tag-this","tag-trial","tag-warning","tag-wellington","tag-wife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423402","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=423402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}