More on Roast Busters

Ever since 3 News broke the story of the west Auckland Roast Busters, police have maintained they couldn’t prosecute the underage sex gang until they received a complaint from a victim.

Tonight it can be revealed the police did receive a complaint from one girl; two years ago.

The girl, now 15, says she felt it was her word against the Roast Busters and no charges were laid.

“This is my chance to say something. I couldn’t do anything two years ago. I want to do something now,” she told 3 News, in the presence of her mother and sister.

She wanted to be identified, but for legal reasons she is unable to be shown or named. She says she was sexually assaulted by the Roast Busters when she was 13.

“Joseph was on my left side. Tristram was on my right. And Beraiah was on top […] I was a virgin.”

She says she was “terrified”.

“I started crying and was asking Beraiah to hop off and I was scared and stuff […] I was more traumatised that I was 13 and losing my virginity.”

She says she was telling them to stop and get off her, but they continued. It was Joseph, she says, who eventually stopped it.

“He said ‘Beraiah get off her or you’ll be done for rape’ […] He said ‘oh shit’, and hopped off.”

She believes she was one of the first victims. Afterwards, she blamed herself. She stopped eating and it took weeks to tell her family.

They immediately took her to the police, where she says she laid a complaint. Her brother handed over the boys’ names and addresses to the detective.

“I had a video interview where I had to act out what had happened with dolls […] It was traumatising.”

But, apparently, it wasn’t enough. She said she felt like it was her word against the Roast Busters.

“They said that I didn’t have enough evidence to show. Because I went out in clothes that was pretty much asking for it. […] I was asked a lot of questions about what I was wearing, and I went out in a skirt.

“If it was me, it could be any of my friends. I knew it would carry on ,” she says. 

“I can’t believe nothing was done then. From then I have had my friends sexually abused by them. How many girls have been raped? I have seen posts done by girls saying Roast Busters ruined their lives […] They’ve gotten away with so much.”

The girl plans to lay another complaint with police tomorrow.

There may be two sides to this story but one the face of it, this is appalling. Regardless of any issues around proving consent, this doesn’t apply as she was 13. I can’t understand how this did not lead to a prosecution.

It is good the complaint is being re-laid.  The challenge for the Police is to convince people that the culture that was evident in some (not all) areas of the Police with regards to sexual violence and women in the past, has been changed. It is not apparent it has. The sad thing with this is a number of female friends who have remarked that if they were raped as a young woman, they would not (or did not) go to the Police.

Of course it is not just the Police who may have a culture problem.  In this Stuff article, the “Roast Busters” are defended by some of their female friends:

The Roast Busters are being publicly defended by an unlikely source – their female friends.

The young women say the girls involved with the Roast Busters knew exactly what they were getting into. Many of the girls had group sex with the gang more than once, showing that they were willing participants, the friends claim.

Many, is not all. It doesn’t matter if 95% were willing participants if 5% were not.

Hargreaves and four of her friends appeared on TV3 last night, speaking out on behalf of the group. They said Hales and Parker were “not rapists” but “cool dudes”, and that drunken group sex was actually “normal in West Auckland”.

“Not for everybody though it’s just the young ones – 13 to 15-year-olds – that’s what they do”, one of the girls claimed.

That is very very sad. I’m sure not applying to all of West Auckland, but there is obviously a sub-culture where it is, and presumably huge peer pressure to conform.

UPDATE: Stuff now reports that the Police in fact had four complaints in the past about members of Roast Busters. This is a very serious situation for the Police as they had been saying that they could do nothing because there had been no complaints.

There are now multiple issues for the Police to deal with.

1. Why did they say there had been no complaints, when there had been four? My assumption is a communications stuff up rather than malice, but it simply isn’t good enough. This information should have been made available to the hierarchy the moment the public spotlight turned on these West Auckland youths.
2. Why were there no prosecutions in the past? Now we need to be careful here as the Police are independent and are the ones who have to weigh up whether a prosecution can succeed. And lack of consent can be very difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt. However if the girls complaining were under 16, then the issue of consent is not necessary for a prosecution. Now again, some judgement here is needed. If two teenagers both aged say 15 and a half have consensual sex, and say the parents of the girl complain, I don’t see much merit in turning the 15 and a half year old boy into a criminal. But if the girls are themselves the complainants and they are aged under 16, then it seems a case for prosecution. Other factors can be the age difference. Two 15 year olds is different to say a 19 year old and a 14 year old.
3. If there were four complaints, why did the Police not take some other action, short of prosecution. Were any of the young men interviewed and cautioned? That in itself would be a good way to scare them into not thinking it is okay to get young under age girls drunk so you can have sex with them.