Holes that leave a detective no choice
Analysis by Cindy Wockner
April 28, 2004
IT is the moment any investigator dreads.
The moment when hairline cracks start to appear in the alleged victim's version of events.
It is even worse when the victim is alleging sexual assault and much of the case hinges on her credibility.
This moment came for strike force McGuigon when some of what the 20-year-old woman had told them in initial interviews appeared to be at odds with evidence and what other witnesses were saying.
Precisely, it was when investigators learned that her girlfriend's wallet or handbag had been found and handed in at the Plantation Hotel in Coffs Harbour.
It may not seem a big deal in the grand scheme of things - except that the alleged victim had told police her reason for going to the Pacific Bay Resort that morning was to return her friend's wallet.
She had said her friend travelled there with a player, leaving her wallet behind and that she needed to return the wallet to her.
But, with the wallet found somewhere at the Plantation Hotel and possibly in the street outside, it appeared, on any reading that the woman's initial reasoning for going to the hotel may not be right.
The anomaly could of course be explained by the fact that outside the hotel that morning the woman had an altercation with one player.
She had pointed at him, suggesting she would "f... him" that night. He had responded angrily, calling her unsavoury names, which included something such as "low-life". Earlier in the evening, somewhere upstairs in an accommodation section of the hotel, she had already had consensual sex with another player.
The wallet could have fallen to the ground in the ensuing struggle outside the hotel.
Or it could have been that she was embarrassed to tell police why she really went there.
Whatever happened with the wallet, it did not bode well for investigators tasked with seriously investigating her claims of gang rape by up to six players.
They were acutely aware that the whole case hinged on her credibility and the ability of her version of events to withstand torrid cross-examination should the matter ever reach a courtroom.
It was just one small issue but it was important.
And it didn't get any better when later she was called upon to identify her alleged attackers from police photoboards.
She had told police, in her initial interviews, that she was gang raped - orally, vaginally and anally - by up to six players at the swimming pool area that morning.
But she was unable, when shown the photos, to identify six players.
Police had also hoped DNA evidence may help to corroborate the young woman's version of events and narrow down just who did what.
It was a long shot anyway, because if all the players got to court and claimed consent it meant little. On the other hand it could help trap anyone who was lying.
But at the end of the day the DNA was of no value. It didn't link the woman and players.
Suddenly the cracks were becoming gaping chasms. In sexual assault cases identity is all important. Without a positive identification from the woman and in the absence of other good corroborative evidence the case was beginning to unravel.
Then there was one footballer who had put up his hand and admitted receiving consensual oral sex from the young woman that morning. Except in one version of events the woman denied that ever took place.
Heaped on top of all this was evidence from some independent witnesses - workers at the resort - who reported seeing her frolicking, as they saw it, happily in the swimming pool about 6.30am.
If this was true her version as to the timing of the alleged attacks and the amount of daylight around at the time must be wrong. With all this extra evidence coming in she was called back for further questioning in a bid to clarify her statements.
Complicating matters even further was the fact that some of the players, who had been interviewed by police that same day in Coffs Harbour, had stuck by their original versions, including those who admitted consensual sex with her.
At the end of the day it was a firm decision. Was there, based on the available and admissible evidence, a reasonable prospect of conviction? The DPP decided no. The standard of proof for any prosecution is extremely high and in sexual assault cases it is even higher.
;-)
