Palmerston man cleared of rape charges against foster girl

A Palmerston man accused of raping a girl being fostered in his home has been cleared of any wrongdoing by a jury, with the court hearing the teen was a ‘dangerous’ liar.

A jury has found a man not guilty of raping a teenage girl four times. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

A man has been acquitted of raping a teenage girl after the court heard she was a “problem liar” who had previously levelled false sexual abuse allegations.

The 40-year-old Palmerston man was charged with four counts of digitally raping the 15-year-old who was being fostered in his home.

After a six day Supreme Court trial, the jury took just two hours to hand down a unanimous not guilty verdict.

In closing submissions, defence lawyer Jon Tippett KC said people like the teen could be “devastatingly dangerous in circumstances like these”.

“They tell lies that destroy careers and reputations and lives,” he said.

“I don’t want to stand here and attack young people or a young person like (the girl) and say awful things about someone who has had difficulty in their lives.

“But she is a person who seems – on all the evidence – to be determined to lie and to continue to maintain the lie. She’s different.

“You don’t convict a man on lies.”

The court heard the girl may have been prompted to make false allegations in part due to an incident surrounding her birthday party, in which she became “very annoyed” the accused would not allow her to invite a certain friend.

Mr Tippett said her claims were “hauntingly similar” to allegations she had made against her biological father as an 8-year-old, accusing him of sexual abuse.

She later told police the story had been fabricated, claiming her mother had forced her to make the allegations with threats of violence, before also retracting the claims against her mother, evidence heard in court revealed.

Mr Tippett also pointed to inconsistencies in the girl’s testimony concerning how the man had touched her and what she had been wearing at the time.