Thames man Anthony Easton has been jailed for six-and-a-half years for the rape of a drunk woman in 2019. Photo / 123rf
Anthony Easton was paying an "unhealthy interest" in a woman who was slowly getting drunk at a party.
She would soon vomit on herself and be put to bed.
She was so intoxicated that night she couldn't walk or talk and was moved again.
This time by Easton, who dragged her, a "dead weight" according to the Crown, into his bedroom.
He then raped her.
Easton appeared for sentencing on a charge of unlawful sexual connection by rape in the Hamilton District Court today after being found guilty of the charge at trial last month.
Two and-a-half years after the attack took place at a Thames property, the victim got some sense of closure as Easton was jailed for six and-a-half years by Judge Glen Marshall.
Her victim statement - read to the court by a friend - stated how she'd gone to Thames to get away for a night and catch up with a friend.
"I had too much to drink and you raped me.
"It's now been two-and-a-half years and I have been fighting for some form of justice and peace for that long."
She still struggled with life since the incident; only sleeping thanks to pills and keeping a knife by her bed, continually fighting off tears, and unable to return to work.
"You are a danger to anybody you go near ... you have shown absolutely no remorse, no awareness to what you have done. You have just continued living your life.
"The longer you are locked up, the longer I will feel safe and you can't hurt anyone else."
Crown prosecutor Amy Alcock said it was heard at trial that the 38-year-old had been making advances toward the victim earlier in the night.
"This is a case where the victim was highly intoxicated to the point where she could not walk or talk for herself.
"She had vomited on herself during the evening. the defendant was involved in moving her to another bedroom because of the state she was in - that was his bedroom where he proceeded to rape her."
The next morning he made the comment that he "may have taken advantage" of her the night before.
Both the victim and her friend told the jury how Easton had been making advances towards her on that November 2019 evening.
The victim found his behaviour intimidating, while her friend described him as "creepy" and she had to tell him to leave her alone.
Alcock argued the main aggravating feature was the victim's vulnerability given her intoxicated state; "she was, at best, incoherent", she said.
"The defendant had to drag her from one room to the next. That was the only way he could move her because she was a dead weight, in my submission."
She urged Judge Marshall to take a starting point of eight years, but defence counsel Russell Boot argued that this wasn't the sort of case where vulnerability was a factor as that had already been accepted by the jury in finding him guilty of the charge.
He said Easton was already in bed at the time and was asked by others to help move the victim into his room that evening.
Even though he hadn't pleaded guilty, he asked the judge to take into account his remorse as he didn't want the victim to feel the way she did.
"The defendant believed he was having consensual sex that evening."
He also asked for a discount to the sentence as Easton had been on a night-time curfew since the offending happened.
Judge Marshall said given her state when she was moved by Easton, it was "obvious she was not capable of walking and on the evidence, she was really not capable of talking or communicating in any meaningful way".
He assessed her as being "semi-comatose" that night, but she was still entitled to be safe in his room.
"The assumption certainly was not that you were going to strip her of her clothing and without any knowledge on her part, then have sexual intercourse with her."
As for the argument of vulnerability, Judge Marshall said it must apply where a person was "so intoxicated they are incapable of making any decision or offering any resistant or aware of what is happening to them".
He declined to offer any discounts for mental health or his remorse but did take six months off his starting point for the curfew he had endured.
"To say that is not a person who is vulnerable is somewhat tripe."
She was stabbed repeatedly in the face, upper torso and abdomen by a man in her home.