Editorial: Law must end daily ordeal of rape victim

The woman's attacker has moved in to the house next door. Photo / Thinkstock

The rape victim in Invercargill whose attacker has moved into the house next door deserves the immediate assistance of the law, and her case demands legislation to ensure that no rape victim can be put in such circumstances again.

The woman's daily ordeal can readily be imagined. She is unable to avoid seeing the man who violated her coming and going freely now that he has served his four-year sentence. Though she has an indefinite protection order against him, it does not say he cannot live beside her. Many will ask, why not?

It would seem easy to include in a court order a provision that the offender not live in the vicinity of the victim but, as often in law-making, it is more difficult to define precisely and practically what that means.

Should the prohibition apply only to living next door, or should it go much further? Should it prohibit living in the same street, neighbourhood (however that might be defined), town, district? Nowhere would be too remote from the victim's point of view.

Should such a law extend beyond the offender's residential address? Rape victims would be equally shaken if the rapist shared their place of work or even worked in the same industry or locality if their paths were likely to cross at times.

The answer to these questions is, broadly, yes. When a lifetime protection order is served on a sex offender, it should mean that it is his obligation not to live, work or spend time anywhere that the victim is at risk of seeing him in the course of her ordinary activities, including her social life. He should be warned that if she complains to the police about where he is living, working, regularly seen or socialising, a court may curb his liberty.

The key word there is "regularly". He would not be punished for a one-off chance encounter, but if it happened again he had better alter his routine. It is he who has to make adjustments to his life, not her. He has done quite enough to change her life already, and whatever the sentence he has served, it pales beside the hurt she will bear for the rest of her life.

If offenders' lives were vulnerable to disruption by the movements of the victim it could be salutary, particularly for those who share the attitude of the rapist in the Invercargill case. When asked why he moved in next door to his victim, he told the Southland Times he held no grudges against her, had served his time and wanted a peaceful life. "If I can get over it, why can't she? It's past tense," he said.

She urgently needs a law that would enable her to get him out of her sight. There is a slight risk that if victims were empowered this way they could use it to wreak their own punishment, putting themselves in the offenders' orbit each time they move. But that would become evident to police and judges after a few complaints. Unlikely as it seems, given the trauma the woman has suffered, legislators would have to consider the possibility. The law could allow judges to cancel a protection order if they found it was being used for harassment.

Rape ranks close to murder in the seriousness of crimes. It violates a person's human rights more deeply than other forms of assault. It warrants repercussions for the offender akin to the lifetime parole that convicted murderers carry after their release.

Rape prevention groups urge that counselling programmes be made mandatory for sex offenders in prison. Lifetime victim protection orders would allow programmes to carry an incentive instead. Those who voluntarily accepted help, and satisfied the programme's goals, could be trusted after release not to live in the vicinity of their victim or go anywhere she is likely to be.

It is the least the law can do for rape victims. The new parliament should beef up protection orders without delay.