Judge rejects paedophile's $30,000 offer

A judge yesterday rejected a convicted sex offender's offer to pay up to $30,000 in reparations to the three stepdaughters he abused.

Justice Rhys Harrison said Bruce Conochie's victims regarded his offer as a self-serving attempt to buy reduced jail time, which would not mitigate the effect his actions had on their lives.

He sentenced the 78-year-old from Tauranga to three years' imprisonment for sex offences dating back nearly half a century.

The judge, sitting in the High Court at Auckland, lifted name suppression but continued automatic suppression for the victims, who have different surnames.

Conochie sexually abused his three stepdaughters on the family farm near Tauranga and also at Te Puke from 1958 to 1965.

He was found guilty in the High Court at Rotorua this month on 11 counts of indecent assault. Some of the crimes have since been reclassified as sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, carrying significantly higher penalties.

Prosecutor Rob Ronayne told the judge that Conochie stole the innocence and childhood of three vulnerable girls. One was aged 8 when Conochie started abusing her.

Defence counsel Paul Mabey, QC, said that Conochie's age and heart problems would make prison harder for him than for a younger, fitter man.

The judge rejected a defence request for a sentence of two years or less with leave to apply for home detention.

Justice Harrison also rejected Conochie's offer of $10,000 in reparations to each of the women.

The Sentencing Act allows for such offers to be taken into account by judges in passing sentence.

The judge said that in the past there had been "ill-directed" criticism of sentencing judges who took offers of amends into account when they were merely applying the legislation as prescribed by Parliament.

He said that, given the head-on conflict between Conochie's denials and his offer of amends, he would not take the offer into account or make any order for compensation.