A couple has been convicted of the serious sexual crimes of rape, sodomy and serious indecent assault of a woman in Neiafu earlier this year. 

Hon. Mr Justice Niu in a ruling on December 14, at the Neiafu Supreme Court, found the husband and wife, Sosaia Latu Maamaloa and Fine Maamaloa, guilty and convicted them of all the charges against them.

The husband was charged with eight counts, including two of rape, one of sodomy, four of serious indecent assault and one for abetting serious indecent assault.

The wife was charged with five counts, including three serious indecent assaults, one for abetting rape and another for abetting serious indecent assault.

The name and identity of the complainant was suppressed by the Judge, who said he believed that she had feared for her life at the hands of the couple.

The Court heard that the complainant had been drinking a lot of alcohol with a friend on the night of January 10. In the early hours of the morning the party broke up and the accused husband and wife (whom she had not previously met), and another person she knew, went in their vehicle to take the complainant home.

She woke up naked and very weak later the next morning, in a house with the accused couple. She could not see her clothes. The sexual offences were committed at this time. The door was locked.

She then managed to escape by telling them she was going to the toilet. She jumped and fell from a rear verandah and ran in fear of her life, before climbing a fence into a nearby home because there was a dress on the clothesline that she could wear.

“She was so scared she had to hide from the man and the woman because she had heard the man call out to her, as she was dashing for the door of the house to the verandah, to come back. She knew they would come after her, and she was right. They did come after her – twice. I find that they did look for her twice and would have continued to look for her but for [another person] telling them that she was inside his house. I find that they stopped looking because they knew they were too late to stop her telling others what they had done to her.”

The judge said the defence of both accused was that the complainant was a willing participant and that she consented to the acts, she complained of and that there was no sodomy committed at all.

Because there was no witness present at the scene at the time except the complainant and the two accused, the determination of the issue in this case was solely on the credibility of the evidence of these three people, he said.

“I have found it very difficult to believe either or both of the evidence of the husband and of the wife.”

"I have found as a fact, well beyond any reasonable doubt, that the complainant did not consent."

The judge then found the husband and wife guilty of all the charges they were charged with. They will be sentenced on January 30, 2020.

He also ordered for no publication of the complainant's name/identity or anything by which her name or identity can be revealed.

The trial was held in October this year.