Annie Varghese, 51, appeared in the Dunedin District Court yesterday for the first day of her judge-alone trial after earlier pleading not guilty to two charges of indecent assault.
Yesterday, the two complainants gave evidence about their uncomfortable experiences during a massage from the defendant.
The first woman got a full body massage at the now-closed Massage Centre in the Meridian Mall on September 9, 2024, after her regular therapist was unavailable.
She said the towel she laid on was damp and the room smelt musty.
Varghese did not cover her with a towel, which she thought was "strange".
The massage started normally, but Varghese then told her to separate her legs and began to massage the woman’s bottom.
Then when she rolled over, still without a towel and feeling very exposed, 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."
Then Varghese massaged the woman’s stomach and was inching lower, causing the woman to panic.
"By that point I was like ‘I don’t know what your boundaries are for touching me’," the witness said.
She then rolled back over and began to cry.
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 complainant said.
"I thought I really don’t want to get this nice lady in trouble if it’s just miscommunication. Imagine if it was and I ruin her whole life."
The second complainant had a similar experience about a month later.
She said Varghese massaged her bottom and breasts.
When she rolled on to her back, the defendant massaged near her collarbones before saying "There OK too?"
The woman assumed she was talking about her sternum so said "OK", but Varghese moved the towel to expose the woman’s breasts and massaged them.
"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.
Counsel Brendan Stephenson asked if the indecent touching could have been accidental.
"I don’t regard any of this as accidental because she chose to massage my breasts, which is something I never asked for or consented to," the witness replied.
The trial, presided over by Judge David Robinson, will continue in January.
felicity.dear@odt.co.nz , Court reporter
