Auckland man was ‘upset’ with girlfriend but did not rape her, jury says

Jurors who heard the trial of an Auckland man accused of raping his girlfriend 17 years ago were told that their relationship “could not have been more normal.”

Giving evidence via video link from her home in Australia, Amy Coronakes claimed that Craig Koning raped her twice after he objected to her coming to his city apartment without his permission, with food that he had cooked as a surprise.

Coronakes told the Auckland District Court that Koning had been controlling and manipulative while dating in the early months of 2004.

However, according to defense attorney Ron Mansfield, Koning had a “perfectly normal” reaction when Coronakes arrived at his home without texting him first, interrupting the evening he was spending with a friend.

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* Auckland man on trial, facing rape charges for 17 years.

“It was strange and a little embarrassing that she showed up at 6pm without warning and with this meal … and he will accept that he got a little angry,” Mansfield told the jury.

“You have to understand why he was upset and embarrassed and confronted her, which is perfectly normal.”

Coronakes, who has asserted her legal right to suppress the names of whistleblowers in sexual cases, said Koning lost her temper when she arrived and threw the Pyrex plate containing the food on the ground.

She claimed that Koning’s friend left while the discussion continued, and when she too tried to leave, she found that Koning had closed the front door.

He said he ran to the bathroom and leaned his weight against the door, which had no lock, but Koning pushed through. She then fled to the bedroom, where he dominated and raped her twice, she said.

Providing evidence in his defense on Wednesday, Koning denied the alleged violations and said that he had not closed the door or forced his way into the bathroom.

He said he was “upset” that Coronakes hadn’t honored his request to text him before coming.

“When I first saw her, she had come into my room and I thought she had come in to take over my evening and spend the rest of the night with me and [my friend]. ”

“It seems silly now looking back, but I obviously reacted badly to her. I didn’t want to take her food away. We were having a discussion about it.

“The food ended up on the floor. She got really mad at me, I think it’s fair to look back and we started fighting. “

Koning said she had read a Facebook message that Coronakes sent her in 2012, in which she told him that she would go to the police if she ever found out that she had hurt someone else.

Koning said the message had made him feel “sick and angry.”

Much of the evidence on Wednesday focused on the period a few weeks after that night, when Coronakes discovered she was pregnant. She later terminated the pregnancy.

The plaintiff’s mother, Glenis Parker, told the court that she was shocked when her daughter told her that she had been raped by Koning and that she was pregnant.

“I was broken … I was crying and I was scared,” Parker said.

During cross-examination, Parker claimed that he did not recall the exact words he used in response, but that “he would have supported whatever route he chose, having a termination or having a child was his choice.”

He took his daughter on a termination appointment in July 2004.

Parker told the court that she did not tell her husband about the rape claim because her daughter did not want him to know.

Coronakes’ father, Christopher Parker, was also called as a witness and said his daughter told him about the rape while they were talking during a road trip in 2008 or 2009.

The trial continues.