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A man on trial for serious violent and sexual crimes against his ex-partner would put a knife to her throat and threaten to kill her, saying the CIA had sent him to assassinate her, a court has heard.
The man, in his 20s, has denied two counts of rape by forcing the complainant to perform sexual acts with him, three counts of assault including holding her in a chokehold, two counts of assault with a knife, and one count of threaten to kill.
The man, who has provisional name deletion, faces a trial alone with a judge in Auckland High Court against Judge Timothy Brewer.
On Monday, Crown Prosecutor Fiona Culliney said the couple was in a brief but toxic relationship and that the woman felt manipulated into staying in the relationship.
Belinda Sellars QC, on behalf of the defendant, said that her client accepted that it was a difficult relationship, but “completely rejected” that it was physically or sexually abusive in any way.
Ricky Wilson / Stuff
Crown prosecutor Fiona Culliney said the couple were in a toxic relationship for seven months.
The couple met in September 2016 before moving in together and the relationship ended in April 2017.
That same day, the complainant went to the police and filed a complaint about the violence she experienced, Culliney said.
On Monday, the plaintiff’s video interview with police was shown in court where, at times through tears, she described the couple’s relationship.
“I wanted to be loved and I wanted what all my friends had,” she said.
During the first week of the meeting, the man was asking for money, he told police.
The whistleblower said he told him that he had been adopted by a rich man after his mother was sent to prison after she put him in the trunk of a car and set it on fire.
Culliney said this was one of the “fanciful” and untrue stories he used to manipulate the woman.
A month after meeting, the couple moved into an apartment together, and that’s when the abuse started, the woman told court.
David White / Stuff
The trial is before Judge Timothy Brewer.
She said they slapped her, threw her to the ground and when she tried to leave, he threatened to kill himself and put a knife to her throat.
“He was so scared of who he was becoming and really hoped and prayed that the pain and abuse would end,” he told police.
After that night she was too scared to leave the “volatile” situation and felt isolated from her family and friends.
“We had these two great butcher knives. Every time he got angry … something inside him would break, and he would go to the kitchen, go get one of the knives and put it to my throat, “he said.
‘YOU ARE GOING TO DIE TODAY’
The night the woman says he tried to kill her was on January 19, 2017.
She told police that she came home to find him asleep on the couch before he woke up “groggy,” with no focus in his eyes.
He told the woman: “The CIA sent me to kill you, today you are going to die,” the court heard.
“You are going to die tonight, you know too much, they persecute me… they have sent me here to kill you. Go up and grab the USB stick … do it right now or I’ll kill you. “
The man began chasing her around the house with a knife, before restraining her with a stranglehold, she said.
Alden Williams / Stuff
The woman told the court that she was insensitive to the abuse when she left the relationship.
“I have never been so scared in my life and I managed to slip away. He had something in his system. I didn’t know what he had taken and why he was trying to kill me. “
The woman then described to the police interviewer that the man asked her to perform sexual acts with him, despite her pleas.
In court Monday, the woman said she was “too embarrassed and embarrassed” to tell police in 2017 about the rape.
When she confronted him about the incident the next morning, he said it never happened and laughed, the court heard.
That night she wrote a letter explaining what happened, she told police.
“I honestly thought that that night I was going to die and if my body was found, people would have to know that he was the one who did it.
“I became numb and accepted my fate and became numb to abuse and turned a blind eye.”
In April 2017, the woman decided to leave the relationship after finding another woman texting on her phone.
“A part of me died that night and I lost my fighting spirit,” he said.
“He was so scared and so under his control at the same time … I should have gone, he tore my necklace off … he looked at me with intense anger in his eyes.”
She went to the police and was issued a protective order against him in 2017, however no criminal charges were filed.
During questioning, Sellars suggested to the complainant that there was no physical violence between the couple.
“Are they all blurred because it didn’t happen?” Sellars asked.
However, the woman said it “happened.”
“You didn’t move … you just let it happen,” Sellars told him.
“Anyone who has been in a relationship of domestic violence will know the fear they have been subjected to,” the woman replied.
The trial continues.
