A prisoner has been found guilty of sexually violating his cellmate and is now facing years behind bars without prospect of parole.
Raymond John Belsey (27) was yesterday convicted of the charge after a jury spent almost five hours deliberating following a three-day trial before the Dunedin District Court.
The defendant appeared calm in the dock but security staff later informed Judge Michael Turner he was “playing up” in the cells after the verdict had been delivered.
Now on a second strike, Belsey, who will be sentenced in February, will have to serve the entirety of that term with no chance of early release.
The victim described how the double-bunked pair at Otago Corrections Facility had clashed while watching television on July 27 last year.
The cellmates argued when Belsey described a pre-teen girl he saw on an advert as “hot”.
After the victim told the defendant he was into “the wrong stuff”, Belsey threw the remote at the television, jumped from his top bunk and smashed the device.
He then turned his attention to the man in the bottom bunk who was lying on his front in his underwear.
The victim described having his leg lifted up and his neck forced down as the defendant violated him three times with his thumb.
“I’ll show you what little girls like,” Belsey said.
The victim said once he got to his feet, he found his fellow inmate in bed, naked, masturbating ‘‘violently’’.
He told the court he spent the rest of the night in his bunk petrified about further violence.
“I didn’t know what I was dealing with. I stayed awake all night, shivering. I felt like I was in survival mode,” he said.
Crown prosecutor Craig Power, in his closing address, said the victim’s actions the next morning were telling.
He left the cell with all his belongings as soon as the doors were unlocked, and made a formal complaint about Belsey’s actions.
The court heard the victim was examined by a doctor who found 11 different scratches and abrasions to his body. One wound, near his anus, was bleeding.
Defence counsel Nicola Pointer suggested the injuries could have been self-inflicted but that was dismissed by Mr Power as implausible.
She argued the victim had concocted the story because their argument was “the last straw”; he could no longer share a cell with Belsey.
Earlier in the trial the witness described how the defendant would exercise naked in the cell and had exposed his genitalia in the prison’s communal areas.
“He was uncomfortable with Mr Belsey’s behaviour and he wasn’t being taken seriously when he was asking to be moved,” Ms Pointer said.
“He saw an opportunity to get away from Mr Belsey once and for all.”
She accepted her client may not have been an ideal cellmate — the victim said he preferred bunking with a double murderer — but that did not make him a sex offender.
Ms Pointer acknowledged jurors may have heard a lot of evidence about life behind bars that made them uncomfortable, but urged them not to let that sway their judgement.
“This was occurring in the context of two men locked in a tiny cell for 20 hours a day for the best part of four to five months. This is lockdown on another level,” she said.
But the jury was sure.
Belsey last made headlines in 2019 when he robbed a Christchurch Subway restaurant wielding a rock as a weapon.
He explained to police he was homeless and needed the money.
