Four years for indecencies with girl

File photo / Greg Bowker.

A man was today jailed for four years for sexually abusing a young girl - offending which he claimed he mostly could not remember because of his drug use.

Shane Daniel Brown, 32, was sentenced in Christchurch District Court after earlier pleading guilty to six charges involving indecencies with a girl aged under 12, the Christchurch Court News website reported.

The judge said the victim, according to a psychotherapist's report, had been left "angry, scared, anxious, sad, her life has been changed forever, and she has nightmares".

Defence counsel David Bunce said Brown accepted the offending involved gross indecencies, at a time when the man had been indulging in a significant amount of drug taking. "That has contributed to a genuine inability to remember a lot of it."

Brown had since made improvements in his lifestyle and was no longer taking drugs, he said.

The court was told that Brown told the victim something bad would happen to her and her family if she disclosed the offending.

- NZPA