NNSL (DEC 18/96) - Leslie Firth buried his head in his hands and gently lowered his head to the table Thursday after a jury found him guilty of beating and raping his girlfriend.

His 25-year-old victim, whose July 22 taped statement to police helped convict the man she told court she loves, burst into tears before she, too, buried her head in her hands.

She had recanted the taped statement in August, and denied under oath last week that she made them.

The statement, made at the Yellowknife RCMP detachment building just hours after the woman was beaten and raped, painted a brutal picture of a victim forced to perform sexual acts on demand and then punched and slapped whether she complied or not.

"Okay, fine. I'll tell you a little bit," here taped voice says. "I got raped all night. I got beat all night. I got slapped all night."

"Once he gets out, I know what price I'll have to pay for talking, believe me I know," it says.

That contrasted starkly with the victim's statements in court, where she repeatedly denied that anything happened July 21 and 22 at her Williams Ave. townhouse.

"What I want is for this to be thrown out of court," the victim told Crown lawyer Brad Allison. "I want my life back, I want Leslie back home, I want my family back together."

In Allison's closing arguments to the jury, he said the victim's denial was an understandable "survival technique."

"The accused ... had his way with her for his own gratification. He left his mark on her," said Allison.

"(The victim) won't convict the man who raped her, but can you? If (the victim) can take some more ... can you?"

Defence lawyer Tom Boyd called several witnesses to the stand during last week's four-day trial, men and women who were all in the Williams Avenue townhouse for various times on July 21 and 22.

Every defence witness said they neither saw nor heard evidence of sexual assault or assault and backed the victim's court testimony that the only argument that occurred over the two-day period was a verbal disagreement over Firth visiting his dying uncle in Inuvik.

In his final arguments to the jury, Boyd said, "she didn't want to go (with police to make the tape), she didn't want Les charged, and the general discussion (with others in the house) was that nothing happened."

He suggested police were over-zealous when they responded to a domestic incident call at the townhouse and made up their minds about what had happened within moments of entering the dwelling.

The three-woman, nine-man jury disagreed with Boyd's theory and returned guilty verdicts on sexual assault and assault charges and a not guilty verdict on an unlawful confinement charge after deliberating for more than three hours.

Firth is scheduled to be sentenced for the crimes on Jan. 17. He has been in jail awaiting trial since July 22 and will remain in custody until his sentencing hearing.