The defendant — a man in his 40s who has interim name suppression — has denied kidnapping a woman and subjecting her to repeated sexual violations in his vehicle on February 7, 2021.
The complainant told the court she had been drinking in town before being picked up by the man.
After dropping her friend off, the two continued to Mosgiel.
The driver told the court the intoxicated woman put her feet on the dashboard, prompting him to push her legs down.
But the woman said the defendant repeatedly groped her, grabbed her throat, then threatened violence if she did not get in the back of his vehicle.
The complainant told the jury he locked the doors and violated her, only letting her go when she said she needed the toilet.
The man vehemently denied any sexual contact and said he had been the victim, since the woman ran off without paying the fare.
"What you’re left with is two wildly conflicting accounts about what happened," Crown prosecutor Pip Norman said in her closing address yesterday.
"The unavoidable conclusion is one of them has lied on oath."
She said the defendant had tried to present his passenger that night as a "caricature of a drunk, inappropriate girl in contrast to his professionalism".
From the witness box, he told jurors the complainant had held his arm and put her head on his shoulder, although that detail had never before been aired.
"The story now is that she was initiating physical contact with him ... adjusting his narrative to paint the complainant in a bad light," Ms Norman said.
After the alleged attack, the woman ran to a petrol station where she charged her phone before having a lengthy conversation with a friend about her experience.
Ms Norman said the contents and proximity of that call to the events made it "powerful" evidence.
Defence counsel Anne Stevens KC suggested otherwise.
"What it means is that she told somebody else her story. Telling 10 people that same story doesn’t make it true," she said.
Mrs Stevens took aim at the complainant’s reliability and credibility, pointing out a succession of details the defendant incorrectly recounted to police.
"How many mistakes do you brush off before you can’t rely on what she says?"
Ms Norman questioned why the woman would ask the sober driver to stop an hour away from her home if she was planning on a taxi-dash.
"It makes absolutely no sense," she said.
She described the woman’s evidence as "compelling".
"If [she] is making it up, those feelings and sensations are an award-winning performance. What a sophisticated and detailed lie she’s come up with, to describe not only the acts that happened but the feelings, the visceral reactions."
It was flawed logic for jurors to consider why the complainant might lie, Mrs Stevens said.
Speculation was not part of their job.
She said her client could be believed.
"What you have seen and heard is a sincere and honest man, not a deviant. He’s motivated by the desire to help his family and provide for them," she said.
"He’s a man who can’t speak our language, no idea what a Kiwi is other than a fruit.
"I submit this is a man, a truthful, sober man and an innocent man."
Judge David Robinson will give his summing up this morning before the jury retires to consider its verdicts on the five charges.
rob.kidd@odt.co.nz , Court reporter
