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The Crown described it as family violence, while defence lawyer Adam Couchman referred to it as “a sensual beginning to the evening”.
Meanwhile the victim said it took her months to recognise what had happened to her was an assault, “despite experiencing prolonged daily panic attacks” afterwards.
During a nine-day jury trial, the court heard the man met the victim and another complainant on Tinder. All three were active participants in the BDSM, or kink community, and all were involved in the sex industry.
He was accused of intentionally strangling both women until they passed out, but was only found guilty on one of the charges.
Judge Bruce Davidson sentenced the man to home detention during a hearing at the Wellington District Court on Wednesday.
In her victim impact statement, read out to the court on Wednesday, the victim said she entered a relationship with the man at a vulnerable time after leaving a lengthy marriage.
“I was submitting to any demand he had of me, no matter how unpleasant,” she said.
“I had the appearance of free will but I was being groomed to be compliant.”
She said she still had nightmares about the man, and now had PTSD as well as skin, nerve and joint damage suffered during the relationship.
“I am left with scars on my body and a tattoo of his name that I can finally remove.”
While the guilty verdict was a “huge step” towards keeping other women safe, this would be undermined if he was allowed to keep his name secret, she said.
Others in the kink community would wrongly believe he was a “safe and knowledgeable dominant”.
In his sentencing submissions, Crown prosecutor Tim Bain said the man was aware of the dangers of strangulation, and that the way he strangled the victim - from behind, in a chokehold, and with no warning - fell well outside the boundaries of consensual breath play.
“It is a case of family violence, plain and simple.”
He said it was “not some kind of sexual accident, or an example of blurred lines during sex, or an example of crossing a line during a sexual encounter”.
He said there would likely be other opportunities in the man’s line of work for women to put their trust in him.
Couchman said there was no animosity or hostility in the offending, which he argued set it apart from a typical strangulation case.
“It was basically, you could say, sir, a sensual beginning to the evening . . . Both were in the shower and then without any warning, the act that forms the basis of the charge took place.”
He said the victim did not know she had been strangled, which meant she hadn’t felt fear in that moment. He argued the feeling of fear was an important factor in other strangulation cases.
Judge Bruce Davidson sentenced the man to nine months of home detention and ordered him to pay $1000 emotional harm reparation.
A hearing next year will decide whether he should have permanent name suppression.
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.
