A leading figure in the New Zealand entertainment industry was sentenced to 12 months' home detention. Photo / Andrew Warner
A leading figure in the New Zealand entertainment industry was sentenced to 12 months' home detention. Photo / Andrew Warner
Woman indecently assaulted by leading entertainment figure says the court process was worse than the crime itself and cross-examination was ‘horrible’ and made her feel like the defendant
She says she would not want to go through the court experience again
Victims advocate Louise Nicholas encourages victims to always come forward
A woman indecently assaulted by a leading entertainment figure says she found the court process more traumatic than the crime itself.
The woman, who was the first of nine women to lay complaints with police alleging sexual offending by the man, said she would not want to go through the court experience again and would not recommend it to her friends.
“I would say the court experience is more traumatic than the actual event.”
The woman, who was attacked while working as a babysitter for the defendant’s family in another town, has spoken publicly for the first time to the Rotorua Daily Post after Justice Layne Harvey sentenced the man to 12 months’ home detention on November 10.
The man, whose name suppression was due to lapse on December 8, was found guilty by a High Court jury in August of two charges relating to the woman - attempted sexual violation and indecent assault - following a three-month trial in Rotorua.
The charge of attempted sexual violation carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.
The trial took three months and was heard in the High Court at Rotorua. Photo / Andrew Warner
The jury found the man not guilty of three other charges relating to the victim and 20 other charges that were later laid by police.
Most of the charges related to serious sexual and drug-related offending where it was alleged he used hard drugs and alcohol to get women to have sex with him. There were nine women who gave evidence as complainants in the trial.
Mansfield said the Crown played a “numbers game” by encouraging more women to come forward but in doing so had created a “MeToo fest”.
The court case
Justice Harvey said the victim accepted the babysitting work and stayed at the same house as the man and his family on the night she was attacked. She had only met him for the first time during the day. He woke her about 1am and asked her to drive him and a friend into town because she was sober. She agreed to do so before they returned to the house.
The man woke her again about 3am, kissed her and touched her under her clothes. Justice Harvey said the jury found those actions were either consensual or the man believed they were consensual.
The man left the room but returned with alcohol and tried to get the victim to drink it.
He picked her up from the bed and held her against a wall using his body weight and indecently assaulted her. He tried to touch her under her underwear and then tried to sexually violate her.
The offending stopped when a friend of the man’s went into the room.
It was revealed during the trial, the woman accepted an offer from the man’s wife to babysit for the family because it was good money - earning $1000 for two nights. But the victim left after the first night because of the sexual attack.
Justice Harvey said the most “significant aggravating factor” was that the man abused his position of trust, as she was there as the babysitter and was under his employment.
“She also placed trust in you, accepting an employment offer to stay at a house with you ... She was in her own private bedroom at night where she was entitled to feel safe.”
The defendant’s previous offending
During the man’s sentencing, Justice Harvey said the man had previous convictions for three counts of assault, assault with intent to injure, wilful damage and driving offences.
He had previously served a term of home detention for that offending.
Justice Harvey said the man’s pre-sentence report showed he had a lack of respect for women and a lack of understanding about consent.
He was concerned the man had said he was clean from drugs and had not misused alcohol since his arrest but had not taken part in a formal rehabilitation programme. The judge believed this could make it easier for the man to slip back into old habits in the future.
As part of the man’s sentence, Justice Harvey ordered him not to consume illegal drugs or alcohol while on home detention. He must also complete a drug and alcohol programme as well as a sexual violence programme.
The victim told the Rotorua Daily Post after the sentencing she was happy with the sentence as she did not think the judge would send him to jail.
The most pleasing aspect was knowing his name would finally be released. .
“It [the sentence] was better than what I was expecting and name suppression being lifted is probably the best outcome in terms of deterring offending in the future.”
But when asked if she would do it all again, she said: “I wouldn’t want to do this experience again. It was pretty traumatic. I would say the court experience was more traumatic than the actual event.”
She stopped short of saying she regretted making a complaint to the police.
“But if any of my friends were sexually assaulted, I wouldn’t recommend going through the whole court process because [in her opinion] it is more traumatising than the offending. [It was] ... the most horrible experience ... I felt like the defendant ... I’m the victim in the matter.”
She said having to go to court for the sentencing and face the man was also difficult because during the trial she didn’t have to see him, as she gave evidence from behind a screen.
“This time was very different. It was very uncomfortable with his support people turning around and staring me in the eye and it felt quite intimidating.”
The victim, supported in court by a friend while she gave evidence, said it was hard for her to understand how the jury could believe her when it came to two of the charges, but not the others.
“I felt a little bit hard done by when the jury believes me beyond reasonable doubt but then they don’t because [three] charges weren’t found guilty ... They believed me beyond reasonable doubt but then they don’t believe my full story.”
But the victim reiterated what she said in her victim impact statement read to the court at the sentencing, that she hoped the sentence would deter him from committing sexual violence again.
The woman said in her victim impact statement that she hoped by speaking out, she could contribute to raising awareness about the lasting effects of sexual assault and the urgent need for society to take a stand against such “horrendous crimes”.
Her mother said it wasn’t an easy decision to go ahead with a prosecution but it had to be their daughter’s choice.
When other women told police similar stories, her mother said it was reassuring and made them feel like “we have got this”.
“I feel like we have been let down by the system a bit [with the not-guilty verdicts],” she said.
What defence lawyer Ron Mansfield KC says
In response to the victim’s statements about finding the court process traumatic, Mansfield said a complainant was like any other witness, whether they be called by the Crown or the defence, and either side could challenge a witness’s credibility and reliability.
“Any witness can lie, mislead or be unreliable even for reasons outside of their control. The Crown challenge a defendant and or any witnesses called on their behalf in the same manner and for the same reasons. That is how a jury can make findings of fact that we can rely on as a community. That is how we avoid miscarriages of justice.”
Mansfield said the current system worked “mostly”.
“But people can be upset when confronted through cross-examination. But my focus for a client is a truthful reliable account from any witness. My focus is on avoiding a miscarriage of justice by someone being believed when they should not be. No one tries to upset anyone in that process but it may be confronting for some.”
Is our court system serving victims well?
In a 2018 NZ Herald investigation into why many sex crime cases do make it to court, Tim Anderson - a former senior detective and now Bay of Plenty police district commander - said his view was that many of the cases were not suited to New Zealand’s “bruising” adversarial justice system, where opposing sides try to convince a jury their version of facts is most convincing, and which frequently seems to put the victim rather than the offender on trial.
“Me personally, I think the system isn’t serving our victims well. That’s my own view in terms of years of investigating these cases and thinking about this quite deeply.”
While Anderson was expressing his personal opinion, it was clear from the Herald investigation that many other officers felt the same way - and that in some cases it was influencing victims to withdraw.
Repeated victims said police warned them off going to court, saying their testimony or their sexual history would be torn apart under cross-examination on the witness stand.
Some victims said they appreciated the honesty. Others felt police were using it as an excuse not to prosecute. One woman was so terrified by a detective’s description of the process she later refused to name her offender, scared she would be forced to testify if they found him.
Victim advocates said while the situation was less than ideal, police often had the person who had been harmed at heart.
Sexual violence survivor and advocate Louise Nicholas. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Advocate Louise Nicholas on why women should come forward
Rotorua sexual abuse survivor and advocate Louise Nicholas was the support person for most of the complainants in court as they gave evidence during the trial. She wasn’t officially this woman’s support person, as she had a friend sit with her during her evidence instead.
Nicholas said the woman did the right thing by making her complaint to the police and going through with the court process.
She said she always told the women she supported it was the defence lawyers’ job to challenge the evidence put forward by the Crown.
“That is what cross-examination is ... But at the end of the day, you know your truth. It’s not the defence lawyers’ fault. They, in a way, are being told what to say by their clients. They can throw as much rubbish at you, you know it is rubbish and you come back with your truth.”
Nicholas said this trial, in particular, was hard on the women.
“That trial was set down for six weeks. We went into our 13th week as the verdicts came out. It was drawn out ridiculously.”
She said that put a lot of pressure on all the women who came forward.
“It was hard on everyone when it went into week eight, then nine and three months later we were still there.”
She encouraged victims to always come forward no matter what the outcome.
“The survivors we have supported in the past always come out feeling heard and believed and feeling so much better because they have left what has happened to them in the court with the person it belongs.”
What the police say in response to the babysitter’s comments
Detective Inspector Lew Warner said police acknowledged the sentencing handed down and acknowledged the women who he said had the courage to come forward.
He said police would continue to ensure they had access to any support they needed.
“Police continue to encourage anyone who may have been a victim of sexual assault or has matters of concern to report to come forward. Police take these matters seriously and we will work with them to ensure they can report these matters in confidence.”
The Ministry of Justice was approached for comment.
Kelly Makiha is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.
