Erin Leighton, in her victim impact statement, identified the pair in the dock as the individuals responsible for upending her life, leaving her shaken and in tears.
Video / NZHerald
Child sexual abuse survivor Erin Leighton is furious after her abuser’s prison sentence was quashed.
The Court of Appeal removed the woman’s sentence and her name from the Child Sex Offender Register.
However, the woman and co-defendant Paul Bennett failed to overturn their convictions for sexual and drug offending.
Child sexual abuse survivor Erin Leighton is furious after the woman who assaulted her won an appeal against her prison sentence resulting in her removal from the sex offender register.
The sentence was quashed by the Court of Appeal.
“[I’m] just horrified and gobsmacked. She was the driving force behind the whole thing. It never would have happened without her setting up the whole thing and gaining my trust,” Leighton said.
The woman, who has name suppression, and her co-defendant convicted fraudster Paul Bennett did, however, fail to overturn their convictions for sexual and drug offending.
The two were convicted in June 2023, Bennett on three charges of committing an indecent act on a young person and three charges of supplying a Class B controlled drug (MDMA), and the woman of two indecent act charges and one charge for supplying the Class B drug.
She was found not guilty on two other charges.
Paul Bennett and a woman who cannot be named for legal reasons were convicted of charges relating to a breach of Erin Leighton's trust when she was 15. Photo / Michael Craig
Their offending occurred in 2008, but it took 16 years for the trial to take place.
At the time Bennett had been managing Leighton’s motocross racing boyfriend, and her parents allowed her to spend time with them as they had trusted the pair.
“I knew it was wrong and disgusting. I didn’t know if anyone would ever believe me, I was really scared to tell anyone, but I was especially scared for my parents to find out,” she told the Herald following the case.
Leighton, it emerged, had been preyed on by the pair, fed drugs falsely described as pain medication before they committed indecent acts on her.
But later that year, after she had gone to police, they fled before authorities had the chance to confront the abusers about what was done to her.
Leighton said the driving force of her extended fight for justice was to ensure the abuse she endured at their hands could never happen to others.
“She’s off the sex offenders list and she’s free to just walk around.
“If you had told me when I was 15, ‘If you go to the police you’d be still dealing with this as a 32-year-old', I would have never gone to the cops.”
At the pair’s sentencing, Leighton said she couldn’t imagine “anything more disgusting” than grooming a child for a threesome.
Leighton, who dropped her automatic name suppression to share her story, said they had caused the “massive psychological wounds” that have festered and flared up across her life.
“I have truly never been able to love again.”
Auckland District Court Judge Brooke Gibson sentenced Bennett to 21 months in prison, and the woman to 15 months in 2023.
The pair had already spent a lengthy period in custody, which went towards time served on their sentences.
Both were placed on the sex offender register.
Bennett’s appeal was based on claims his prosecution should have been stayed for an abuse of process during his deportation from Australia and because Judge Gibson erred in summing up the case.
The woman argued Judge Gibson failed to direct the jury properly and that his summation of the case to the jury was unbalanced.
She also appealed her sentence and placement on the Child Sex Offender Register.
Both defendants challenged the judge’s decision to exclude evidence Leighton had allegedly made false statements about her drama teacher in high school.
A school incident report on the matter, cited in the court ruling, noted Leighton had been sent out after she failed to bring a change of clothes to a drama class in 2007.
Instead of writing a list of why pupils were required to bring a change of clothes, as was requested, the ruling said she made derogatory note about the teacher, including a claim that she enjoyed watching “little boys and girls getting dressed”.
The conduct led to her suspension.
“The immediate reader of the statements was — or was meant to be — the complainant’s drama teacher. The context thus suggests that they were not offered by the complainant with the intention that they be believed,” the decision said.
“It is plain that they were intended to offend or offered as an act of defiance.”
All other grounds for appealing the convictions also were unsuccessful.
On the woman’s sentence appeal, her lawyer argued the 15-month sentence and placement on the Child Sex Offender Register was manifestly excessive given her pre-sentence detention, the impact of being on the register and personal factors.
At sentencing, Judge Gibson said the woman had “ruled out” the option of home detention because she refused to consent to an electronically monitored sentence.
This, the ruling said, led Judge Gibson to consider a sentence of intensive supervision however he concluded it was insufficient to denounce her conduct and to deter others.
“He thus considered a sentence of imprisonment to be the least restrictive sentence appropriate. As a consequence, [she] was automatically placed on the Child Sex Offender Register.”
Her lawyer, Jo Scott, submitted Judge Gibson should have imposed a sentence of supervision or intensive supervision and that, on appeal, the woman should now be convicted and discharged.
She also submitted that the length of time the woman spent in pre-sentence detention was relevant to the type of sentence that should be imposed.
“She was subject to just over 37 months in custody. This was more than double her eventual sentence,” the ruling said.
Scott told the court Judge Gibson failed to consider the punitive consequences for her client being on the Register and said she wouldn’t be on it had she not been sentenced to imprisonment.
The woman’s appeal against the sentence and her registration was accepted.
“We respectfully disagree with the judge that a sentence of intensive supervision was insufficient for the purposes of denunciation in this case.
“While [she] ‘knew the difference between right and wrong’, we consider it significant that she was — as the Judge said — effectively captured by [Bennett]."
They also considered it important that her pre-sentence report indicated she had a low risk of similar reoffending, “notwithstanding her denial of any such offending against the complainant”.
She was subsequently discharged.
Katie Harris is an Auckland-based journalist who covers social issues including sexual assault, workplace misconduct, crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2020.
