WARNING: The following story contains details that may distress some readers.
Former NBL basketballer Kendal "Tiny" Pinder says he is "sorry" for violently raping a woman – who was left with life-threatening injuries – but claims it was an "accident" and that her account of it was not truthful.
The former Perth Wildcat made the remarks during his sentencing for two counts of sexual assault – one of which involved recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm – at the Sydney District Court on Friday.
The first rape happened in November 2009, after which the woman was rushed to hospital and had to undergo surgery that required a blood transfusion due to the large amount of blood she lost.
Pinder – who already has a lengthy record of sexual offences in WA, New South Wales and the US – had raped the mother-of-three again in March 2021, while she was sleeping.
'I felt cold'
In her victim impact statement, read out during the sentencing hearing, the woman said she thought she was not going to survive the first attack.
"I was worried I might die and then who would take care of my children," the statement said.
"I thought 'will my children be okay, growing up without a mother?' … My body was shaking; I felt cold and my mind drifting away."
The woman described feeling "controlled" and "gaslit" by Pinder before coming forward.
"I felt used, ashamed and I blamed myself," she said.
"Now I can see everything that happened to me was wrong … now I've been heard and people around me believe me, I feel I am brave and able to speak up."
The court heard the woman suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, had issues trusting men and felt unsafe alone in public – especially at night.
Pinder 'sorry' for 'stupid mistakes'
The 67-year-old former Harlem Globetrotter's lawyer Anita Betts said her client decided to give evidence during his sentencing hearing to show his remorse.
"I'm very sorry for the hurt and stress I caused her," he said.
Mr Pinder said he had also reflected on his past offending – which included raping three teenagers and a young woman in the late 1980s and early 90s.
"I'm sorry for the hurt I caused to all those ladies," he said.
"I made some stupid mistakes and behaved inappropriately."
The Crown prosecutor questioned the sincerity of Pinder's apologies and put to him that referring to rape as a "mistake", was minimising the serious offending.
"I'm not minimising anything," Pinder said.
"I was always sorry for what I've done … there was no malice for me to hurt (the victim) at all.
"It was an accident."
The prosecutor went on to detail the agreed statement of facts of the 2009 rape, which included the woman saying "no", trying to crawl away and Pinder pulling her back by her legs.
"That's not true," Pinder said. "That's what she said."
When the prosecutor put to Pinder that he hadn't made mistakes but raped multiple women repeatedly, Judge Andrew Scotting interjected with: "That's not very helpful."
Cognitive capacity of 14-year-old
Pinder said he would seek counselling to ensure he would not "make that mistake again".
He admitted he had received extensive counselling for sexual offending previously but insisted further counselling would prevent him from re-offending.
Ms Betts said her client had recently undergone a psychiatric assessment and a doctor had deemed him as having the "cognitive capacity of a 14-year-old boy".
She also said Pinder had suffered violence as a child.
It was revealed the 67-year-old was assaulted in prison in 2021 and again last month and would need to undergo CT and MRI scans for his injuries.
The former champion basketballer played for three NBL teams in the late 1980s and early 1990s, , including the Sydney Supersonics and Illawarra Hawks.
He helped the Perth Wildcats secure their first two championships.
Extensive criminal history
In 1992, Pinder was convicted of attempting to rape a 17-year-old girl at his unit in Perth's suburbs two years earlier.
In the following months, he was convicted of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old woman and later a 16-year-old girl after offering her a lift home from a bus stop.
A year after he was released from jail on parole in 1995, Pinder was jailed again for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl in his car in New South Wales.
More recently, in 2021, the notorious former basketballer was imprisoned for stalking a woman in her 20s from a train station in Sydney's southern suburbs.
When being cross-examined by the prosecutor on Friday, Pinder admitted he pled guilty to the stalking offence by a way of convenience.
He rejected the agreed statement of facts of that matter – which included repeatedly telling the woman to get in his car and following her.
"I didn't do anything wrong," he said. "That was a bunch of crap."
The sentencing hearing will resume next month.
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