{"id":445397,"date":"2026-05-26T04:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T04:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/445397\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T04:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T04:15:07","slug":"wellington-rape-trial-husband-found-not-guilty-of-raping-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/445397\/","title":{"rendered":"Wellington rape trial husband found not guilty of raping wife"},"content":{"rendered":"

She described how the relationship had been rocky from the start but had descended into violence, threats to kill and rape<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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

Releasing the reasons for his verdict, Judge Sainsbury said the case turned on his assessment of the credibility and reliability of each.<\/p>\n

Judge Sainsbury said that while he heard evidence during the trial of the wife\u2019s PTSD, this didn\u2019t make her evidence any less credible. <\/p>\n

There was no evidence that mental illness caused hallucinations or, in itself, created false memories or delusions, he said. <\/p>\n

The judge found she was an honest and reliable witness, and her account was plausible. <\/p>\n

He also found that other witnesses gave evidence that supported the wife\u2019s account, and her diagnosis of PTSD was consistent with her having suffered the type of trauma associated with the allegations<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe possibility that this was an abusive, controlling relationship, in which the defendant offended against the complainant in the manner alleged, is an available conclusion on the evidence. But it is not the only available conclusion.\u201d <\/p>\n

The judge said the defendant\u2019s evidence was also credible, and he couldn\u2019t discount that it wasn\u2019t true. <\/p>\n

During the hearing, the defence provided hundreds of messages the pair exchanged on various forums, including Facebook, WhatsApp and email.<\/p>\n

Judge Sainsbury said while he accepted the Crown\u2019s proposition that the text messages didn\u2019t necessarily reflect the true nature of the relationship, that wasn\u2019t the general tenor of the texts. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile mental illness does not make the complainant\u2019s account less credible, there is weight in the defence position that the complainant viewed the actions of the defendant in a negative light that impacted her ability to be objective and impartial. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat is also illustrated in her understanding and interpretation of the text messages. The complainant\u2019s reading of the text messages did not fit with what they plainly said.\u201d <\/p>\n

Accordingly, the judge said he couldn\u2019t exclude the reasonable possibility that the husband\u2019s evidence was true, and he found the husband not guilty of all charges. <\/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 described how the relationship had been rocky from the start but had descended into violence, threats to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1554,181,1874,3368,10109,51030,111,43,139,5006,69,1118,145840,28703,34458,51246,6289,17703,544,427,1961,54,1455,52,1842],"class_list":["post-445397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-alleged","tag-details","tag-found","tag-guilty","tag-husband","tag-includes","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-offend","tag-offending","tag-rape","tag-raping","tag-readers","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\/445397","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=445397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}