A massage therapist has been found guilty of groping two women during treatments at a Dunedin mall. Annie Varghese, 51, appeared in the Dunedin District Court on Friday where Judge David Robinson found her guilty of two charges of indecent assault. It comes after the conclusion of the defendant’s judge-alone trial in March this year, where she denied the charges, arguing she did not touch the victims in the way they described. At trial, the two victims told the court they received full-body massages from Varghese at the now-closed Massage Centre in the Meridian Mall. They both gave evidence the defendant had touched their breasts and buttocks’ during the treatment, leaving them shaken and uncomfortable. The first complainant said her massage, in September 2024, started normally, but Varghese then told her to separate her legs and began to massage the woman’s bottom. Then when she rolled over, feeling very exposed as she had not been given a towel, the masseuse massaged her breasts. ‘‘I felt really, really, really uncomfortable,’’ the witness said. ‘‘I didn’t get any creepy weird vibes off her at all, so I thought maybe she doesn’t understand that that’s not normal.’’ Later, she sent an email to the parlour outlining her uncomfortable experience. In subsequent emails from an account under the business owner’s name, the complainant was accused of requesting a ‘‘happy ending’’ from the masseuse. ‘‘It’s hard — I feel sad because I was assaulted and I feel like the lady that did it doesn’t care, she hasn’t said sorry to me at all, but then I also think of her as a human being,’’ the victim said. The second victim had a similar experience about a month later. She said Varghese massaged her bottom and breasts. ‘‘I don’t know … if it was malicious on her part, I don’t know if she just thought she was doing her job,’’ she said. ‘‘But it was just the most bizarre thing.’’ She panicked and did not feel like she could tell the woman to stop especially given the lack of privacy in the mall parlour. ‘‘It wasn’t like I could just get up and walk out; I was mostly naked, there’s strangers in the next — not even room, the next curtain,’’ the witness said. In her police interview, Varghese accepted she had touched one complainant’s bottom during a massage as it was part of the treatment. ‘‘Whole body means I have to do whole body,’’ she told the officer. But at trial the defendant said the women were lying about what she did to them. She gave evidence she never touched the clients’ bottoms during the massages and asked both clients for consent before touching near the breasts, eventually saying she showed a diagram of where she would massage. In his written decision, Judge Robinson said he found the defendant’s evidence was “entirely unconvincing” and “evolved” throughout the trial. “The defendant’s evidence was unsatisfactory in a number of respects,” the judge said. “Ms Varghese was unable to provide any explanation for why massage was performed in the manner she described, except to say that it formed part of a full body massage, and that clients might complain if that was not performed.” The judge noted the defendant was not willing to make reasonable concessions when giving evidence and her account of events was completely different to the victims’, at times accusing the women of lying. “I cannot accept the defendant’s evidence as being truthful or accurate,” the judge said. The two victims were “credible and reliable” and there were several similarities between each of their accounts, which was significant given they had never met, the judge said. “I consider the complainants’ evidence revealed a pattern in the defendant’s conduct which included massaging past or below the underwear line, massaging the buttocks cheeks after pulling the underwear into the natal cleft, massaging the breasts and making contact with the nipples,” the judge said. “This is not a case of an implausible coincidence,” he said. After Judge Robinson delivered his verdict yesterday, convictions were not entered as counsel Brendan Stephenson indicated he would apply for a discharge without conviction for his client. That hearing was set down for November. felicity.dear@odt.co.nz
