Muchirahondo found guilty of 17 counts of rape and sexual assault

John Hope Muchirahondo in court. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon

By Rachel Graham

John Hope Muchirahondo has been found guilty of 17 counts of rape and sexual assault.

The 38-year-old Christchurch man has been convicted of raping eight women and sexually assaulting a ninth.

In addition to the 17 sexual offending charges, he was also found guilty on one count of not providing access to a cell phone.

The offending took place in Christchurch and Auckland, spanning from 2011 to 2021.

On Monday afternoon, the jury delivered its verdicts after their 10th day of deliberations in the High Court at Christchurch.

Muchirahondo was found not guilty on eight charges of sexual offending and the jury couldn't reach a verdict on five others.

The verdicts bring an end to the two-month trial, which involved 15 complainants.

Muchirahondo showed no emotion as the verdicts were read.

Justice Lisa Preston remanded him in custody to be sentenced in December.

She thanked the jury and said they have had to listen to extraordinarily difficult evidence.

In a statement, Detective Inspector Nicola Reeves said she acknowleged Muchirahondo's conviction on 17 of the charges.

"I would like to acknowledge the significant bravery and strength shown by the many complainants in this case. Sharing their experiences with police and throughout the judicial process has required grit and courage.

"They have had their memories attacked and attempts made to discredit their account. They have withstood the challenges and their voices heard.

"They should be incredibly proud of their actions and I hope these verdicts bring some measure of peace and closure."

Reeves also thanked the work of the Crown prosecutors and the jury for their "careful attention and deliberations throughout this trial".

"I encourage any person who would like some advice or would like to report a sexual assault to contact police."

The Crown case

The Crown said Muchirahondo took advantage of vulnerable women who had often had too much to drink and were in no state to consent, or woke to find him having sex with them.

Crown prosecutor William Taffs told the court that Muchirahondo was accused of sexually violating 15 women, including women he was in relationships with, or considered him a friend and some who met him on a night out on the town.

Taffs said in some cases, Muchirahondo had sex with women while they were intoxicated to the point of throwing up or being unconscious.

"In other cases you will hear of them waking up and finding Mr Muchirahondo inside of them," said Taffs, "and going in and out of consciousness, and once of (him) telling them to go back to sleep".

Taffs said some of the complainants said they were pressured or forced to have sex with Muchirahondo.

The charges spanned from 2009 to 2021.

The police investigation was sparked by a woman who in February 2021 met Muchirahondo during a night on the town with her friend where she became very drunk.

At the end of the night they caught a taxi together to where she assumed was her home, but she ended up at his place.

The woman said she was raped by a man while passed out on the couch, and that man was Muchirahondo.

Crown prosecutor Claire Boshier said Muchirahondo was a man who had disregard for the concept of consent.

"What the other party wants or even what state she is in, is irrelevant to him. He simply does not care. He is focused on what he wants," she said.

Boshier said intoxication was a feature for many of the complainants, and the jury would have noticed that often the females were very intoxicated but Muchirahondo was not.

"Usually you might think the sober person is the one relied on to look after the others who were drinking, to drive people home safely. In this case you might think Mr Muchirahondo's sobriety was the opposite - it was predatory."

The Defence case

Muchirahondo's defence lawyer, Anselm Williams, said Muchirahondo admitted to having sex with many of the women, but said he always had consent, or had reasonable grounds to believe he had consent.

In two of the cases, Williams said Muchirahondo did not have sex with the women, and it was a case of mistaken identity.

Williams said memory was a key issue in the case, with many of the women piecing together events of a drunken night out, and in some cases from years ago.

He said the woman whose complaint sparked the investigation into Muchirahondo in 2021 had told the court that it was definitely Muchirahondo who sexually assaulted her after a drunken night out.

But Williams said on the day she reported the crime, the woman said she did not know who had assaulted her, and described a man with different hair and clothes than Muchirahondo.

She had no memory of kissing Muchirahondo on a night-club dance floor, despite video evidence confirming it.

"She had significant issues with her memory that night," said Williams, "including incidents like the kiss which you would expect her clearly to remember. After the event we know she spoke to her friend trying to piece it together. And when she came to court she was confident that the person, who she couldn't identify directly after this, was Mr Muchirahondo".

He said the jury needed to consider the factors that may have had a role in putting together incorrect memories for the complainants.

"Police were actively finding complainants, they were describing Mr Muchirahondo to witnesses, they were telling complainants that this was a large investigation, that there were many complainants, and many people were saying similar things."

Williams said in the cases in which Muchirahondo had been in a relationship with the complainants, the women had now recast consensual sexual encounters due to collusion with other complainants or animosity towards his client.

He said Muchirahondo was persistent when pursuing sex, with one complainant described him as persuading her to have sex.

"He is doing that with words, with body movements, rather than being physically violent or forceful. It is cases of this type you must take real care to not equate persistence and selfishness with guilt. "

Williams said Muchirahondo grew up in Zimbabwe until young adulthood and was brought up in an area with more traditional gender roles, and a different attitude to sex.

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