Revenge rapist gets 17 years

A man who forced a 57-year-old woman's son to watch her being raped in revenge for an alleged drug rip-off has been jailed for 17 years.

In the High Court at Auckland yesterday, Justice Mark Cooper ordered 41-year-old Kalvant Karl Singh of New Lynn to spend at least eight years behind bars.

Rarely has a High Court judge been more scathing when passing sentence.

The judge referred to elements of sadism and the unusual callousness of Singh's behaviour in tying up the son and forcing him to watch his mother being degraded and humiliated.

Singh's crimes were abhorrent and involved a particularly unpleasant form of premeditation, he said.

In addition to raping the woman, Singh was found guilty of violating her with a loaded gun.

Singh, the judge said, attempted to justify his behaviour by claiming that the son had stolen money - variously put at amounts between $5000 and $800,000 - which he was under pressure to repay criminal associates.

Justice Cooper said that did not justify his behaviour; it only added to the seriousness.

It appeared that the sexual violations of the mother in front of the son were to force him to confess and tell where the money was, although the judge said Singh might have invented or imagined the stolen money.

Justice Cooper said the rapes and other sexual violations were not the result of "yielding to sexual arousal" but part of a cynical attempt to extract information from the 28-year-old son.

"This was a special and perverse premeditation, not present in other cases," the judge said.

Singh, a male escort, was convicted on charges including kidnap, assault with a weapon, causing grievous bodily harm, possession of a pistol, violations by unlawful sexual connection, rape and possession of equipment for manufacturing methamphetamine.

Justice Cooper said the mother and son suffered a horrendous 12- to 13-hour ordeal.

The son, who was tied up, was badly beaten, suffering a broken nose, a broken jaw, a lost tooth and bruising. He had to be fed through a straw for several weeks after the assault.

Singh cut the man's cheek with a knife, despite knowing he was a haemophiliac.

The judge said this would have added to the mother's horror when she arrived at Singh's apartment and saw her son bound, beaten and bloodied yet was prevented from helping him.

Instead she was subjected to a horrifying and degrading ordeal in front of her son.

A three-minute video footage of part of the incident highlighted the terror, as the mother was heard pleading for Singh to stop, only to be mocked by him.

Singh loaded a gun and told her: "Two people are going to die tonight."

The judge said she was in genuine fear that she and her son would not survive the night.

He said Singh's conduct denied her humanity and his own.

Judges and juries had to sit impassively listening to evidence, the judge said, but they wondered how it was that some people could behave in such an inhuman way to fellow human beings.

Outside the court, the mother said she was glad she watched Singh being sentenced.

He had all the power that night, but now the court had taken that away.