Hastings rapist gets preventive detention, and fined and de-patched by gang

The Napier Courthouse, where Courtney Tremain Curry was yesterday sentenced to preventive detention for rape. Photo / File

A recidivist sex offender aged just 26 has been sentenced to preventive detention for raping a woman in Hastings earlier this year.

Courtney Tremain Curry first came to notice for an indecent assault in 2006, when he was 14, and just over three years later he was jailed for sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and warned preventive detention was likely if he offended again.

Sentencing him for the latest offence, Justice Karen Clark told him yesterday in the High Court in Napier he will serve a minimum five years' jail before being eligible to be considered for release.

The Judge said the 28-year-old victim was "very intoxicated," having been drinking in a bar, at an address nearby after the bar closed.

In the early hours of April 29 she left the address to walk to her vehicle.

It was raining heavily and she recalled taking shelter under the eaves of some shops, but nothing more until she realised she was being raped on the rear seat of a car.

As the man drove her to an address at her request afterwards, she managed to take his phone without his knowledge.

Once they arrived at the address she went inside and came out again and struck and cracked Curry's windscreen.

Curry drove away, but the woman called police and gave them his phone.

When apprehended he denied having met the woman and gave false explanations as to how he had lost his phone and how the windscreen had been cracked.

The victim's statement revealed a "strong and thoughtful young woman, not without compassion," the judge said.

At first she was determined not to let the experience beat her, but as she learned more about the rapist her life altered dramatically, she feared leaving home and she spent days inside without going to work — her "passion".

"While she feels unable to forgive you at this stage, she wishes that you use the time serving your sentence to educate and develop your self and become an asset to society and a role model to your whanau," Justice Clark said.

"If you do not, your victim says she will be insulted and will wish loneliness and hardship on you."

Curry had been a victim of abuse as a young boy, his parents had both passed away, as had his brother — "the victim of gang violence earlier this year," the judge said.

Curry had reported that he had been a patched member of the Mongrel Mob, but was fined by the gang and had to return his patch for the rape.