A young girl told the High Court that a neighbour raped her at her home in February 2023 while she was menstruating, in testimony given as part of an ongoing trial where the defence has challenged her account.
According to Wadadli Case Files, the complainant described the accused as a neighbour she saw often but rarely interacted with, since she tended to stay indoors. She told the court that on the day in question she was 14 and at home alone waiting for dance practice when the defendant knocked on her door asking for her aunt. When she told him her aunt wasn’t home, she said, he pushed his way inside and assaulted her in her grandmother’s room, ignoring her pleas to stop. She said she was in pain from menstruating and the intercourse exacerbated the pain.
The defence, led by attorney Sherfield Bowen, focused heavily on inconsistencies between what the complainant initially told police and the fuller account she gave later. Under cross-examination, she acknowledged that her first statement to police described a lesser incident, that the defendant had touched her before realising she was menstruating and leaving. She agreed this account omitted what she says truly happened.
