Palmerston North District Court. Photo: RNZ/Ana Tovey
Content warning: This story contains discussion of sexual abuse of children.
A teenager says he pretended he was enjoying sexual activity he says he was forced into at the hands of a prominent professional on trial for sexual and indecent assault to allow his escape after the pair met on Grindr.
The teen said he feared he was going to be raped.
The middle-aged prominent professional is known as a leader in his field, but suppression orders mean his name or any factors leading to this identity cannot be revealed.
He has pleaded not guilty to 10 charges and on Tuesday went on trial, before Judge Stephanie Edwards, without a jury, in the Palmerston North District Court.
The man's charged over two incidents, one in March last year and one in 2007, with a boy who was then 14.
In March last year he's accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy who visited his Manawatū house after the pair chatted on gay dating app Grindr.
The defence says the man had a reasonable basis to believe what happened was consensual.
The teen, who was 17 at the time, gave a recorded interview the day after the incident, saying he was confused about his sexuality and wanted to talk to someone.
He said he thought Grindr might be an appropriate place to do this, although when questioned by defence lawyer Steve Winter he said he had since found out it was used to for sexual encounters.
In the interview the teen said he went to the man's house and found the man on his bed.
There he said the man had sexually and indecently assaulted him, despite the teen physically resisting and at one point repeating "no". At other times the teen said he was too anxious and too much in shock to speak, but would shake his head and try to squirm away, fearing he would be raped.
The teen said the man held him firmly in place, so the teen decided to pretend he was enjoying what was happening so the grip would loosen. This happened and the teen escaped the bedroom. The man did not follow.
The teen said a comment from the man, that the teen would look cute in a school uniform, was the catalyst for him reporting the incident to the police.
"That quote just rocked me. I can't get it out of my mind. I can hear him saying that and I was just repulsed and frozen in shock."
The man was arrested in March 2023 and interviewed by police.
In the interview the man said he used Grindr for "hook ups", and had a user name that included "daddy" and "fun".
He said the teen had "indicated" he was 18, as that was on his profile and because you have to be that age to use the app, and the man thought the pair were engaging in consensual activity.
"At no time did I force him to do anything that he didn't want to... At one point he just got up and walked out really quickly, then accused me of assaulting him."
The man denied restraining the teen and that the teen had repeatedly said no at any point.
"If he had then I would have stopped straight away...
"I feel quite set up, to be honest. This is absolutely not how it went," he said when asked about the teen's allegations.
The man said a message he sent to the teen after their encounter: "Hey, you okay? Sorry" was a way of apologising if the teen felt uncomfortable.
"It was meant to be innocent fun and obviously it hasn't turned out that way," the man told police.
Another text talking about rewarding the teen if he returned was about perhaps buying him something, while believing the teen was a consenting 18-year-old.
The man is also accused of meeting a 14-year-old boy in 2007 on a dating website, meeting with him, giving him alcohol, and then engaged in sexual activity.
The defence says there was no sexual contact between the pair and the 14-year-old was trying to extract money from the man.
The trial continues.
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