A jury found the 32-year-old guilty of rape and unlawful sexual connection, following a trial in the Nelson District Court.
He was also found guilty of assault, for which he was convicted and discharged.
Sentencing was conducted today before Judge Andy Nicholls in Wellington, who was connected to the defendant and his small crowd of supporters in the Christchurch District Court via video link, while the Crown was linked in from Nelson.
The Nelson courthouse was closed suddenly last month following the discovery it was well below seismic risk standards.
The closure has forced many scheduled matters to be adjourned and sentencings to be conducted remotely.
The victim described in her statement read in court on her behalf that she’d been in a relationship with the man for several years, and how when she met him she had been “young and confident”.
She’d felt in love, that she could trust him, but over time that changed, and she became a person who was hurt physically and mentally.
“I became confused about what was right or wrong and I didn’t know if what was happening was normal.
“I just wanted to be loved,” she said.
She became isolated by what had happened and didn’t want others to know she was scared, and how betrayed and neglected she felt.
She also described how difficult it had been for her to go to the police, and how it wasn’t her intention to have him “punished” when all she had wanted was for him to say sorry for the hurt caused.
The jury’s verdict
The facts as accepted by the jury were that when the victim was waiting for surgery to address a painful medical condition, the man ignored her when she said she didn’t want sex, held her down and had sex as she lay crying, on her stomach and unable to fight back.
Then, later in December of that year, he forced her to perform oral sex on him.
Around the same time, he’d become abusive towards others after drinking at a work Christmas party. The victim left, he followed her, an argument broke out and he assaulted her.
Crown prosecutor Sophie O’Donoghue said rape within a relationship was among the most difficult complaints, partly because of misconceptions held by members of the community.
She said aggravating features in this case were that the victim was vulnerable because of her medical condition, she was in pain, and she had told him “no”.
“He wanted sex so took it anyway. In that sense, there was particular cruelty,” O’Donoghue said.
She contested it was more serious to rape someone with medical issues who had said she was in pain and had asked him to stop.
O’Donoghue said the events and the breach of trust have caused serious, long-term harm to the victim.
A ‘man of good character’
Defence lawyer Kerryn Beaton acknowledged the impact on the victim and submitted that was more relevant than the vulnerability the man had taken advantage of.
The defence also referenced the many letters of support from the man’s family, friends and employer, and how he described at the trial that the behaviour he was found guilty of was not the sort of thing any of them expected.
“He was a man of good character,” Beaton said.
She said he had continued to display that good character through the many community events he had been part of, and the help and support he had given to his local community, above and beyond what he was paid.
Beaton said the defendant didn’t accept the verdict, which Judge Nicholls said was an indication of his prospects for rehabilitation.
From a starting point of eight years, the defendant was awarded a 15% discount for his previous good character and in recognition of the impact his imprisonment would have on the stepchildren he had become close to in a new relationship forged since the offending.
Judge Nicholls granted the victim the protection order she sought.
Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.
