Malaysian man jailed in New Zealand for raping sleeping partner

PETALING JAYA: A 30-year-old Malaysia man has been sentenced to five years and nine months in jail In New Zealand after he was found guilty of raping his sleeping partner and kidnapping her during a later road trip.

The man, whose name has been withheld to protect the victim's rights, arrived in New Zealand in March 2020.

He has been in custody for over a year awaiting trial on the charges that stemmed from a series of incidents dating back to July 2021, and after he breached a protection order twice by contacting her when he was on bail.

According to the New Zealand Herald, the court found that the woman did not consent to having sex when they were together on the morning of July 1, 2021, which led to the charge of rape and on a later road trip, she was detained in a car against her will, leading to the kidnapping charge.

The man's lawyer, Lee Lee Heah, said he arrived from Malaysia in March 2020 on a working visa before he met and then "fell in love" with the complainant in April 2021.

By mid-2021 the pair were living in the Tasman region after moving from North Island for seasonal work.

They rented a room in a house where the rape took place on the morning the woman was due to go to a job interview in Nelson.

The man claimed he had taken the day off work to drive her there, but she was still "sleepy" so he woke her "in a romantic way".

The woman said she did not consent to having sex with the defendant at the time in question and tried to push him away.

On other occasions, she did not want to have sex with him but allowed it "out of duty", reported NZ Herald.

Then in November 2021 the man booked a cabin on the Cook Strait ferry from Wellington to Picton and while she slept, he gained access to her phone where he discovered evidence of what was described in court as her affair with someone else.

After the ferry crossing, the couple drove to Kaikōura but argued about what the man found on her phone.

The next day, a planned whale-watching trip was cancelled due to bad weather, so the man began to drive south towards Christchurch, when the woman had wanted to return to Nelson.

He was about 10km down the road when the woman realised where they were heading and she began yelling and called the police from the car.

The man then turned around and was pulled over by the police who tracked the vehicle using the woman's cellphone.

In February 2022, the woman complained to police about what happened and the man was issued with a temporary protection order that included conditions not to contact her.

He pleaded guilty to two charges of breaching a protection order in September last year and attempting to pervert the course of justice by contacting the woman and asking her to withdraw her complaint.