Corey Aldridge was 13 when he committed the first rape. Photo / Supplied
WARNING: This story discusses rape and may be distressing.
A man who raped a five-year-old girl on her first day of school when he was just 14 wept as she confronted him in court today.
“I could only dream of what it would have felt like to have genuine innocence, the innocence that every child deserves,” that girl, now a woman, told him this morning.
Corey Aldridge, now 50, first raped the girl when she was just 3 or 4 and he was 13. He also raped her brother when the brother was 5.
“My brother blamed me for what you’d done to him and I don’t blame him … I should have protected him but I was only little too.”
The woman said she had sexual feelings from a young age which made her feel “dirty and confused” and she dreamed about running away from home to get away from Aldridge, who was known to her.
She described how the lasting effects of his abuse impacted her when she later had a daughter.
“I never trusted anyone around her,” the woman said.
“I over-protected her to the point that as she got older she struggled to deal with everyday life.
“I thought I was protecting her from people like you.”
Her brother, now in his late 30s, asked Aldridge to stand in the dock as he read his victim impact statement before saying he forgave him.
“The day Corey touched me was the day I lost my childhood,” the man said in the Palmerston North District.
“Corey, you took advantage of a vulnerable little boy. You made me afraid and scared. You were bigger than me, older than me and I was f**king terrified of you.”
The man told the court how Aldridge’s action started a snowball effect that tainted every aspect of his life.
“I am a little boy whose life is destroyed. I don’t have pride in myself or my achievements and it’s never good enough,” he said.
Aldridge appeared for sentencing on five sexual assault charges in relation to two siblings and a third male victim after pleading guilty on the eve of his trial earlier this year.
According to the summary of facts he first raped the little girl in his bedroom.
“She was crying because of the pain you inflicted but you persisted,” Judge Jonathan Krebs said.
Then when the girl was five years old, Aldridge took her into his bedroom again and she began crying and protesting. He raped her for a second time on what was to be her first day of school.
Aldridge then turned his attention to the girl’s brother and during another visit he took the boy to the bathroom where he forced him to perform oral sex on him before raping him.
Several years later he forced the same boy to perform oral sex on him again.
A third victim was 11 when Aldridge, who was by this time 17, took him to a caravan showed him pornography, then raped him.
Judge Krebs sentenced him to three years and four months in prison for his offending which he said took into account his age at the time and his difficult upbringing.
He said the guilty pleas spared his victims from having to testify, but it did come at the last possible moment.
“Your victims speak of innocence lost, lives changed forever. Childhoods abandoned. Dangerous behaviours adopted by the victims which they firmly believe were attributed to your offending against them.
“I commend the victims for their bravery reading the reports to me and to confront you in such a raw fashion about your offending. It’s important that you hear that.”
The judge urged the victims not to let what happened to them define their lives and hoped that his sentence would bring them some closure.
Aldridge’s lawyer Kila Pedder told the court his client was extremely remorseful for what he’d done and had an almost non-existent criminal history since raping his third victim several decades ago.
“He is still coming to terms with the nature of his offending,” Pedder said.
“He has written a letter of apology … he did meet with one of the victims prior to the police complaint being laid and apologised.”
The courtroom was packed with the friends and family of the victims.
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.
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