Sex for money wasn’t rape: defence lawyer

A teenage girl wanted money for sex with an older man and then stole his wallet when she did not get the amount of money she wanted, a court has been told.

Jason Haward’s lawyer told a Wellington District Court jury yesterday that the 15-year-old girl had approached him and took him into the bushes near Paraparaumu Beach for sex on April 21 last year. She wanted $50.

The Crown had alleged Haward took her into the bushes, forced her to have oral sex then raped her before she fled naked from the scene, running for home.

Haward has pleaded not guilty to unlawful sexual connection and rape.

Defence lawyer Sonia Thistoll said Haward admitted there was intimate touching but the teenager had consented and, in fact, asked for $50.

When he gave her $30 after being unable to get an erection, she snatched his wallet and ran.

When the teenager arrived home naked, she had to make up a story, Thistoll said.

‘‘She was right to have concerns about how her parents would react after her father assaulted Mr Haward.’’

Crown prosecutor Erin FitzHerbert said Haward’s tale was outlandish and about the seventh version he had come up with.

He had needed a version that included touching to explain why male DNA, likely to have come from him, was found on the complainant.

‘‘He has been making it up as he went along.’’

Initially, Haward said he was robbed by her, then he said he was set upon, and now he had said there was a strip dance in the bushes and touching, FitzHerbert said.

Haward sexually violated the girl and had no grounds to believe she had consented, she said.