KEY POINTS:
Sexually abusing a handicapped teenager has landed a former New Plymouth IHC caregiver and justice of the peace a two-year jail term.
Rex Graham Stewart, 48, pleaded guilty to three charges of exploiting a significantly impaired person on the second day of his trial in October.
Five other charges were dropped.
In the High Court at New Plymouth yesterday Justice Ronald slammed Stewart for the gross breach of trust in preying on such a vulnerable victim.
"Instead of caring for him you exploited him sexually for your own ends," he said.
The Taranaki Daily News reported Stewart was a carer in charge of an 18-year-old handicapped youth with the equivalent mental age of a six or eight-year-old when he took photographs of the teenager's genitals, touched his genitals and got the victim to take photographs of his genitals.
It was, Justice Young said, similar to preying on a young child, given the victim's mental age.
- NZPA
