Judge Michael Crosbie<\/a> said the defence\u2019s case was that the woman was lying.<\/p>\nTo \u2018smear\u2019 his name<\/p>\n
He said throughout the trial, Gold had alleged the woman\u2019s claim was a lie, stemming from an attempt to \u201csmear\u201d the reputation of the lieutenant out of \u201cjealousy and anger\u201d.<\/p>\n
The defence said it was a lie the woman \u201cdid not back down on\u201d, Judge Crosbie said.<\/p>\n
He said the Crown\u2019s case was that the woman was a credible witness \u201cdespite some oddities\u201d in her account. Those included that she had stayed in the room afterwards and started a consensual relationship with the lieutenant in the following days.<\/p>\n
Admitting those \u201coddities\u201d had a \u201cring of truth\u201d, the judge reported Crown prosecutor Sam McMullan saying, and this was understandable as part of the \u201chuman condition\u201d.<\/p>\n
McMullan advised the panel to look to the woman\u2019s explanations, including that she told someone what happened some months after the fact, out of concern it might happen again to someone else.<\/p>\n
The Crown claimed the \u201cintelligent, articulate\u201d woman had also not painted the lieutenant as a bad guy, and had not made up the story out of jealousy, Judge Crosbie said.<\/p>\n
![\"Crown]()
Crown prosecutor Sam McMullan at a Court Martial in February. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
At the start of the week, Gold questioned why the woman didn\u2019t leave the hotel room after the first instance of alleged violation.<\/p>\n
The woman replied she was mostly in shock and then worried about having to explain to her roommate why she had come back early.<\/p>\n
Many in their group, including the roommate, knew she had gone back to the lieutenant\u2019s room, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, you\u2019re saying that you … carried on a sexual act because you were worried about going back to your room early?\u201d Gold asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was anticipating that [he] would understand … and not violate me again,\u201d the woman answered.<\/p>\n
Gold also reported the woman\u2019s roommate had described her as being in \u201chigh spirits\u201d when she came back into the room.<\/p>\n
The woman said she remembered her roommate asking her how it went, and her replying \u201cgood\u201d, but she was not in \u201chigh spirits\u201d, she was hungover and not feeling great.<\/p>\n
She said she knew she was just raped and hadn\u2019t told her roommate and felt she had to carry on that narrative.<\/p>\n
Her roommate was very \u201cgirl talk\u201d, \u201clet\u2019s chat\u201d, \u201clet\u2019s gossip about boys\u201d, and she made a decision to play into that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was trying to compartmentalise what happened and … pretend like it didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
She admitted seeking out the lieutenant after that night, because he was fun, but disagreed with the Gold saying she was \u201cobsessive\u201d with him the next day.<\/p>\n
She went on to have consensual sex with him the next night, she said, with a condom, because she felt like she had gotten through to him after the third alleged violation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew if it happened again, I would have done something about it, as crazy as it sounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also knew she wanted to keep seeing him after the trip, but if she wanted to walk away, she could, she said.<\/p>\n
Ella Scott-Fleming has been a journalist for three years and previously worked at the Otago Daily Times, Gore Ensign and Metro Magazine. She has an interest in court and general reporting. She\u2019s currently based in Auckland covering justice related stories.<\/p>\n
Join the NZ Herald\u2019s Open Justice team for Case by Case<\/a>, a video and podcast series examining the disputes and decisions making headlines across New Zealand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The lieutenant\u2019s lawyer Asta Gold told the court that her client respected the woman\u2019s wishes not to have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1117,1349,133471,2082,42,78,15371,46664,43,1118,10932,12253,34458,6443,40,38,41,39,21146],"class_list":["post-610461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-accused","tag-court","tag-devonport","tag-for","tag-headlines","tag-in","tag-martial","tag-navy","tag-news","tag-of","tag-officer","tag-panel","tag-rape","tag-returns","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-verdict"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610461","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=610461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}