Hidden behind a wooden screen from the mother and son she accuses of tormenting her, a Punjabi woman has told of beatings that started soon after her arranged marriage to the son.
Speaking through an interpreter in the High Court at Rotorua, a jury heard how the woman had arrived from India with a lavish dowry but once it was handed over and she was married she was forced to take on the family's domestic duties, watched by her mother-in-law.
On trial is a Te Puke beneficiary in her 60s, and her 33-year-old kiwifruit worker son.
The woman has pleaded not guilty to a joint charge with her son of attempting to procure an abortion, to being a party to his assault on his wife and a separate assault charge involving her daughter-in-law.
As well as the abortion charge, the son is charged with two counts of threatening to kill his wife, two of raping her, one of assaulting her with a knife, three of assaulting her and three of sexually violating her.
The alleged offences span a period from April 2008 to June 2009.
The accused's names cannot be published to protect the complainant's identity.
The woman has claimed that both mother and son hit her, twisted her arms and slapped her face. Her husband had abused her verbally, physically and sexually.
The court was told that when the wife suspected she was pregnant the pair forced her to take tablets that made her ill, and then her period returned.
The Crown also alleges the husband, on being confronted over an alleged affair he was having, grabbed a knife and said he was going to kill her and himself.
That night he forced sexual acts on her against her will, some injuring her.
The trial is continuing.
NZN