A prisoner allegedly violated his cellmate after an argument over sexual comments about a pre-teen girl, a court has heard.
Raymond John Belsey (27) is on trial before the Dunedin District Court following the incident on July 27 last year at the Otago Corrections Facility.
He pleaded not guilty to the charge of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection once the jury of six men and six women had been empanelled yesterday.
The defence was simple, counsel Nicola Pointer said.
‘‘This just did not happen . . . [the complainant] is lying.’’
The only thing that was agreed was that Belsey and his cellmate were watching television together that night.
The complainant said the mood soured when the man in the top bunk described a young girl who featured in an advert as ‘‘hot’’.
‘‘I said maybe potential when she was a lot older . . . he was like ‘nah, she’s all good’.’’
The complainant, in a video interview with police just days after the episode, described how he took Belsey to task over his comments.
The defendant allegedly reacted by throwing the remote at the television and smashing it after leaping down to the floor.
It is alleged he then lifted his cellmate’s leg, held him down by the neck, then violated him several times using his thumb.
The complainant described jumping up to find Belsey back on his bed, now naked and masturbating.
“I haven’t seen anything like it before. I didn’t know what to do,” he said.
“I was freaking right ... out. My heart was beating a million miles an hour.”
The man opted not to immediately press the emergency button to alert Corrections officers.
He said he knew it would take them some time to arrive and he was concerned Belsey was acting unpredictably.
“I didn’t know what I was dealing with. I stayed awake all night, shivering — I felt like I was in survival mode,” the complainant told the court.
Ms Pointer said it was her client who was cowering in his bunk because he was scared of retribution for breaking the television.
The witness rejected that version of events.
Crown prosecutor Craig Power said the jury would be shown CCTV of the man gathering his belongings and leaving the cell when doors were unlocked the following morning.
Belsey could be seen, he said, throwing items out of the room.
Dr Jacqueline Hughes gave evidence of injuries she found on the complainant’s body including a bleeding 2cm abrasion close to his anus.
Ms Pointer asked the man whether he could have scratched himself but he denied it.
Similarly, the witness rejected assertions he had concocted the story so he could make an ACC compensation claim or be transferred to a single-person cell.
“If he gets out and does this to some child I’d feel responsible,” he said.
The court heard Belsey was interviewed by police in the days after the alleged incident and told officers he had not touched his cellmate.
Their discussion ended, though, when the defendant became aggressive, Mr Power said.
The trial, before Judge Michael Turner, is scheduled to run for three days.
