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The policeman who led the inquiry into a horrific sex attack in Pukekohe last year hopes the man found guilty of 26 charges over the attack will die in prison.
Justice Hugh Williams today sentenced Roger Tira Kahui, 37, to preventive detention with a minimum non-parole period of 16 years, saying society needed to be protected from a man who had more than 120 previous convictions.
The minimum non-parole period was one year more than Crown prosecutor Steve Haszard asked for and pleased the inquiry head, retiring Detective Senior Sergeant Neil Grimstone.
"His words are that he'll probably die in prison. Well, let's hope that comes back to haunt him," said Mr Grimstone, who described the attack as the work of a "filthy savage" during the hunt for the offender.
"It's a great result for the victim in this and her courage has ensured that no other woman in this country will ever have to be subjected to such an attack by such a low life for the rest of his time."
A jury in July found Kahui, a relative of murder accused Chris Kahui, guilty of 26 charges including rape, kidnap, sexual violence and indecent assault.
While on bail on a charge of being found without reason in a yard, Kahui knocked on the door of his 37-year-old victim's Pukekohe home, south of Auckland, on June 13 last year asking to use the phone, and forced his way inside.
Kahui then beat her up before raping her and committing other sexual acts in her bedroom and living room in what was a 4-1/2 hour ordeal.
Her forced her to watch and re-enact scenes from a pornographic film and made her shower on at least two occasions to wash any evidence of his DNA.
At the end of her ordeal Kahui handcuffed the woman and drove her to a bank to withdraw cash from an A" machine. But she escaped and ran to a petrol station for help.
The victim said in a statement read out in court by her sister that she no longer felt safe in her own home and had regular feelings of powerlessness over her own life.
She often had trouble sleeping at night and had frequently been in arguments with family members, who nonetheless had been understanding and supportive.
"I have feelings of guilt and humiliation. I imagine people are saying 'why did she answer the door, why did she not put up more of a fight'," she said.
"I realise they are probably not thinking that but because I am thinking it then I believe they are.
"This continues to be my worst nightmare."
Kahui's lawyer Peter Kaye asked for a finite sentence less than preventive detention, saying there was nothing in research to suggest whether Kahui could be rehabilitated.
He said his client had continued to deny his guilt.
But Justice Williams agreed with Crown prosecutor Steve Haszard that there was little chance of Kahui rehabilitating himself as he had a habit of getting drunk and re-offending as soon as he was released.
He said Kahui, who was subject to physical and emotional abuse, was taken from his parents at the age of seven and was living on the streets when he was nine. He joined a gang in his teens and committed the first of 130 crimes in his teens.
Most of his convictions were for burglaries and for anti-social activities, but he did have some violence convictions.
In particular, he was jailed for eight years on a charge of conspiracy to rape following an attack in Palmerston North in 1991, when he was 21.
He and another offender, armed with knives, broke into a flat while two women were asleep. They took the women into separate rooms where Kahui indecently assaulted one of them while the second man raped the other.
Justice Williams said Kahui's past sentences amounted to more than 100 years in jail, albeit imposed concurrently.
In addition, he had shown no remorse and no willingness to rehabilitate himself in any previous visits to jail and the only likely reason his list of offences was not longer was that he was in jail for much of the past 20 years.
Justice Williams said the offences committed in this incident "is pretty well as serious as most that have come before the court".
"Society needs to be protected from you for a long time."
A family member said "yes, you piece of shit" when the preventive detention sentence was read out, and the victim hugged her sister.
- NZPA
