A policeman's instincts when out looking for a missing 13-year-old girl in Napier led to finding her being sexually violated by a drunken man.
But the discovery also led to a jail term of five years and six months for 56-year-old David Bernard Taylor, who ashamedly admitted the offending although claiming to remember little of it.
The details of the events of one day in July this year unfolded on Friday in Napier District Court.
Judge Bridget Mackintosh noted the shame and remorse shown by a man who had a variety of health complaints stemming from a back injury which had stopped him from working for several years.
But he was also a "chronic alcoholic", whose offences had caused serious trauma for the girl, who, the judge said wanted to be safe knowing Taylor would be going to jail.