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Stuff
Dilbagh Singh says he felt as if the floor were opening under him when he was convicted of rape in November 2019.
Inadequate instructions from a judge to a jury have led to charges against a fast food worker convicted of raping a 17-year-old colleague at a Pizza Hut dough counter.
Dilbagh (Sonny) Singh, now 31, was convicted of three counts of rape after a jury trial in Christchurch District Court in October last year, and sentenced to nine years and six months in prison. The alleged violations occurred on two separate days in June 2018.
In May, the Court of Appeal ordered a new trial after it found that trial judge David Saunders had failed to give the jury proper instructions. Judge Saunders told the jury that they had to be sure Singh was guilty and said it was a very high standard.
“But that was it… The jury was not told that it was not enough that the Crown had persuaded them that the defendant was probably guilty or very likely guilty. There was also no description of what was a reasonable doubt, ”the appeals court said.
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The Crown did not proceed to a new trial because the complainant, who was 17 years old at the time of the alleged crime, indicated that she could not face another trial. Singh was released from the charges last week by Judge Jane Farish.
Union Unite said it supported the plaintiff “100 percent” and nothing in the Court of Appeals decision suggested that the evidence did not stand. Judge Saunders had said that he was not concerned with its veracity.
“This is a system failure and now [the complainant] you have to pay for system errors. He has suffered from depression and anxiety and it is entirely understandable that he has decided not to undergo a process that he had already endured ”.
Singh flew back to India on Saturday to visit his father Natha, 63, who is fighting for his life against Covid-19 at an Amritsar hospital. The Pizza Hut worker arrived in New Zealand nine years ago and was required to become a New Zealand citizen before the charges were filed.
He said Stuff his faith in the New Zealand judicial system and human nature was seriously affected. He had spent eight months in a Christchurch jail for rapes he said he did not commit, and his family had exhausted their resources to finance his defense.
His family had used his savings and mortgaged his land in Punjab, and his brothers, who work in Queenstown, had given him everything they could afford.
He denied that he had sexual contact with the complainant and when the police came to his apartment to talk to him about the complaints, he thought it was a joke.
“I never really took it seriously. I’ve never been in trouble in my life. I trusted the judge to say, ‘Sonny, this was all a terrible mistake, you can go home.’ When I heard the jury say guilty, I felt like the floor was opening up under me, ”he said.
“I have got my life back. I’m not here to take revenge on anyone. I can’t put into words what I’ve been through. I wouldn’t even park on a yellow line. I was in jail with murderers.
“It shouldn’t happen to anyone. I am afraid that this will happen again or that it will happen to my children. We used to like to think of ourselves as Kiwis, but now I feel like I’ll never be Kiwi from the way I see it. I’m not sure I’ll go back. “
His brother, Harpal, said he always believed Sonny to be innocent, but he didn’t expect people to take his word for it. He wanted to show people “why Sonny was innocent of the facts.”
