Party sex predator jailed for 12 years

Chubb slipped Ecstasy and other drugs into women friends' drinks before raping and assaulting them. Picture / David White

He slipped drugs into friends' wine glasses and fed women ketamine-laced Ecstasy. He plied others with alcohol and led the way in drinking games - all so he could rape and indecently assault his victims.

Now 29-year-old Neville Victor Chubb is into day two of a 12-year prison stretch.

The thick-set, scruffy-haired former drainlayer showed no emotion as Justice Colin Nicholson yesterday handed down concurrent terms of 12 years on three rape charges, four years on each of two indecent assault charges and seven years for administering the Class B drug Ecstasy.

Chubb was found guilty of the charges by a High Court jury in December.

He "was a man who saw his opportunity - people who he happened to know through social contact - and he raped and interfered with them because he could," Crown prosecutor Kevin Glubb told the court in sentencing submissions. At his trial, the court heard Chubb slipped Ecstasy into a woman's drink in an Auckland bar in 1999.

Later, while she was under the drug's influence, he and another man had sex with her.

In February 2001 Chubb bought Ecstasy for two women friends. However, the pair had taken the drug before, and knew what to expect.

The court decided that the Ecstasy also contained another drug - likely ketamine - after the women reacted badly to the pills. While the women were suffering the effects, Chubb indecently assaulted one, and raped the other.

Chubb carried out two more rapes and another indecent assault in the months between December 2002 and May 2003.

The drugs charge carried a maximum sentence of 14 years' jail.

Mr Glubb wanted Chubb sentenced to a term of preventive detention, which would have seen him imprisoned indefinitely and, once finally released, subject to prison recall for the rest of his life.

But if it was to be a finite prison term, the Crown urged it be in the vicinity of 12 to 16 years, with a minimum non-parole period of two-thirds.

"This offending strikes at the heart of personal safety for women. The victims should have been safe," said Mr Glubb.

Chubb's offending had been "repeated and brazen", and the methods he had employed "deliberate and surreptitious", Mr Glubb said.

He also urged Justice Nicholson to discount any "date rape" submissions by the defence.

"These were women who may have known him, but were taken advantage of just simply because of their condition."

Defence counsel Ron Mansfield told the court his client's crimes did not warrant a term of preventive detention, citing pre-sentence reports that said there was a low risk of Chubb re-offending.

He quoted one report that cited "a number of positive factors", excluding Chubb's lack of previous criminal offending and the "significant motivating factor" that Chubb had found his time on remand to be.

His client would reform well while serving a finite prison term, Mr Mansfield said, and recommended he be sentenced to a term of nine to 11 years.

A number of letters were submitted to the court prior to sentencing and while many criticised the police investigation, or the jury's verdict, they were indicative of others' faith in Chubb, he said.

In passing sentence, Justice Colin Nicholson said Chubb had been "heavily involved in the young person party scene and heavily into drug taking and sexual activity in that context".

But he told Chubb that he had crossed the line and become a sexual predator.

"You relied upon their disablement and, later, their sense of upset and embarrassment."

However, he stopped short of a term of preventive detention, instead imposing a 13 year sentence, discounted by one year.

"I trust that now sentencing has been imposed, this will assist your victims in reaching some degree of closure for the harm you did to each of them" he said.

As Chubb was taken down, Justice Nicholson said he hoped he would go on to develop the positive aspects of his character - indicated in the pre-sentence reports - after his release from prison.