Bruce Hintz groomed his victim, calling her "princess" and "buttercup". Photo / 123rf
This article deals with the sexual abuse of a young child and may be distressing for some readers.
A rapist who sexually abused and violated a girl from the age of 4 kept the indecent photos and videos he took of her hidden for more than 15 years.
Then police came knocking, found them, and used them in evidence against him.
Napier man Bruce Wayne Hintz, 66, who kept photographs of the girl under his mattress, is now starting a 14-and-a-half-year jail sentence.
His victim, now a grown woman, was in the Napier District Court to see Hintz sentenced this week.
“I look at you and I feel nothing. You are sick and twisted,” she said in a victim impact statement which was read to the court.
“You don’t deserve to live free in the community.”
The statement described the lasting effects of the abuse the woman suffered between the ages of 4 and 8.
She had fallen into drug and alcohol use, attempted to commit suicide, had struggled with relationships, and was tormented by the “disgusting images” which came into her mind when she looked at photographs of herself as a little girl.
She hoped Hintz spent the rest of his life in prison, “which is where he deserves to be”.
Judge Bridget Mackintosh said the “courageous and brave” woman’s life had been an ongoing nightmare, impacted by post-traumatic stress.
Hintz claimed he did not remember the girl, who stayed with relatives who knew Hintz about 20 years ago.
But when police armed with a search warrant arrived at his Napier home in March 2023, he still had printed thumbnail images of her in the pages of a pornographic magazine hidden under the mattress on his bed.
There was also an A3-size print of one of the images of the girl, naked.
Hintz still had a floppy disk with five photographs, and a hard drive in his home office which contained images and videos in a hidden folder, many of them time-stamped with dates from 2006 to 2008.
Police found photographs of the girl naked and in posed positions, and of sex acts Hintz was committing with the child.
There were 21 photographs in total. Five of the photographs provided police with enough evidence to charge Hintz with rape.
There were also two short videos.
Hintz eventually pleaded guilty to rape and 16 other charges including indecency with a girl under the age of 12, sexual violation, and making and possessing objectionable publications.
Some of the charges were representative, meaning the acts covered by them happened to the girl a number of times.
The girl was 4 when the abuse started.
The court was told that it went on until shortly before her 9th birthday and that Hintz groomed the child by calling her “princess” and “buttercup” and letting her use his computer.
Hintz said there wasn’t any grooming.
Judge Mackintosh disagreed: “I think there was,” she said.
She said that Hintz built a relationship with the girl which was distinct from the way he acted with other children, that there was a breach of trust and she was a vulnerable victim.
Judge Mackintosh sent Hintz to prison for 14 and a half years for rape and unlawful sexual connection, with lesser concurrent sentences for the other offences.
As it was Hintz’s first time appearing before a court for sentencing, she declined to impose a minimum period of imprisonment.
But she placed Hintz’s name on the child sex offender register and ordered that the photos and the videos be destroyed.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.
