Mother Prayed, Child-Sex Trial Told
By Jon Morgan
Originally published in the New Zealand National News, June 18, 2002
When a nine-year-old told her mother she was having sex with their 19-year-old boarder, her mother said she would pray for them, the High Court at Palmerston North was told yesterday.
A Feilding man, 27, whose name is suppressed, denies five charges of rape and two of unlawful sexual connection with the girl, now aged 16. He has admitted three further charges of unlawful sexual intercourse and one of indecent assault.
Prosecutor Peter Butler said the girl's mother, who had deep religious beliefs, first knew of the sex when the girl was aged nine.
She told the couple she forgave them and would pray for them.
But as the girl told her the sex was continuing, "she didn't do what you might expect—she didn't tell him to leave and live somewhere else."
He said the rape charges centred on the issue of consent. The parents' inaction might have given the man a false sense of security but "a mere child cannot give a rational consent to sex and the consent cannot be given by someone else on her behalf."
The girl told the court her relationship with the man began when she was eight, just before he moved in. He had told her mother, and shortly afterward told her, that he wanted to marry her.
"I thought it was pretty cool, I liked the attention he was giving me," she said.
That day was later treated by the family as their anniversary and each year cards were sent to them. It was as if they were engaged, she said.
She was aged nine when they first had sex a few months later. Her mother's response had been: "You're going to get married anyway, it's a pity you couldn't have waited." The girl said: "I accepted that, she was my mother."
The sex continued during the next five years—till she was almost 14—about every two days, sometimes two or three times a day.
She said she told her mother about it between five and 10 times.
When she was 11, her parents strung a chain with bells on it across the door leading to his bedroom at night but he still managed to dislodge it and go to her.
Their relationship cooled suddenly when she found pornography in his room. This was a bigger issue in her family than the sex, she said. Her mother acted as if he had betrayed her.
When she went to a church camp she realised what they had been doing was wrong. "They talked about keeping your virginity and I realised I couldn't."
She said she believed that if she had wanted the man to move from their house, her family would not have supported her. She finally went to police last year.
Asked how she felt now, she said: "I feel like my virginity has been stolen from me and I can never get it back."
