The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denies the offending. He was sentenced in the Tauranga District Court. Photo / 123rf
This article deals with the sexual abuse of a young child and may be distressing for some readers.
“I just don’t have a mum. She doesn’t believe me, she believes him. Now instead of love, there is hatred towards me.”
Those are the words of an 11-year-old whose family has sided with her stepfather, a man convicted by a jury of sexually violating her over 10 months.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denies the offending. He was sentenced in the Tauranga District Court on Tuesday, after a jury trial in February found him guilty of showing the girl pornography and six charges of sexual violation.
Two charges were representative – they related to repeated instances where the victim couldn’t recall specific dates or times.
The court heard how the girl was 7 when the man first called her into his room and made her perform oral sex on him.
According to the summary of facts, the girl told him she needed to go to the toilet, but he wouldn’t let her leave.
Other times, while her younger brothers were sleeping, her stepfather had called her into his room, after he’d had a shower, and made her perform oral sex. During these occasions, he would often be playing on his tablet.
The summary of facts said he told her what to do and said that her mother did the same thing to him.
On other occasions, the sexual acts happened at another family member’s house, and on camping trips.
He would also sometimes wake her up to make her perform oral sex, while her younger brothers slept in the same room. He would hold a blanket around her as she performed the act, while he watched TV.
It was while visiting a relative that her stepfather had shown her a pornographic video on his tablet of a boy and girl having intercourse.
The girl did not attend her stepfather’s sentencing, but two of her supporters did.
Crown Solicitor Anna Pollett read her victim impact statement, with the public gallery full of family members there to support her stepfather.
“[His] family became my family. His mum was my Nan, now they’re turned away from me,” she said.
“Sometimes I get messages from them saying they hate me. It’s like all the people I loved and I was around all the time are suddenly gone because of this. I’ve lost my whānau.”
The girl wrote that the hardest thing was that she was no longer allowed to see her younger brothers.
“We were very close. I helped to raise them, to change their bums, and to babysit them. I love them so much,” she said.
“Not being with them is hard, I really miss them. I worry about what others are saying to them about me.”
She said she no longer had a relationship with her mother, who believed her stepfather, not her.
She’d also lost the man she had thought of as a dad.
“He was like a dad but he wasn’t a good dad. That hurt. What he did, that’s not what dads are meant to do.”
She was starting to know it wasn’t her fault that all this had happened, but “it’s just hard”.
The girl’s supporters left the courtroom as soon as the sentence was handed down, while a couple of her stepfather’s supporters yelled abuse at them, including “yeah, you run mother f***er”.
As the defendant’s whānau and supporters filed out of the public gallery following the sentencing, emotions ran high, with sobbing, wailing, and profanity.
“There wasn’t even any f***ing evidence... F***ing liar.”
With sexual offending this serious, the judge acknowledged the only option was imprisonment.
The Crown had asked for a starting point of 13 years, while the man’s lawyer Roger Gowing submitted that 12 was appropriate.
Judge Bill Lawson said caution was needed when considering the aggravating factors of the offending, which included the seriousness of the violations, the fact there was ejaculation on some occasions, and the vulnerability of the victim and breach of trust.
“Whilst I acknowledge they are all present, I have to be very careful. Some of them overlap and speak to the same issue,” the judge said.
“I can’t simply add them together, I have to ensure there’s no double counting.”
Judge Lawson said a start point of 11 years imprisonment was appropriate.
The judge didn’t consider there to have been a large degree of premeditation, concluding the offending had been “opportunistic”.
While often there were grounds for discounts, there weren’t in this case – the man continued to deny the offending, as is his legal right, but this meant no discount for remorse was available.
A report into his background showed none of the “normal factors that we see that might justify a discount”.
The judge said the man had a good upbringing with supportive whānau, had completed his education, and had been in steady employment throughout his adult life.
“That might seem ironic that someone with a positive background doesn’t get the benefit of a discount, but the reason for that is sometimes a person’s background might have a causative link or aspect to the offending.”
That wasn’t the situation in this case.
The man didn’t qualify for a discount for previous good character, because he did have two previous convictions from 2015 and 2016. Letters of support and character references from the man’s family and community had been provided to the court, which the judge acknowledged.
The 32-year-old was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.
A disregard for authority could be why those attending court are thumbing their noses.