Teen rapist jailed for eight years

Meredith was jailed for eight years for the attack on the woman who cannot be identified. File photo

A woman who was in the early stages of pregnancy when she was viciously beaten and raped on a popular walkway in the middle of the day begged her attacker not to hurt her because she was carrying a baby.

Her pleas to the teen, who held a knife to her throat and was high on magic mushrooms, were in vain.

She was so badly hurt she couldn't even shed a tear afterwards.

"All I wanted to do was cry, but that was too painful," the woman said today when reading an emotional victim impact statement to the Wellington District Court.

She also revealed how she and her husband had been through IVF treatment and an embryo had been transferred to her the week before the June 11 attack.

Just that morning the woman felt early signs of pregnancy and a blood test was soon expected to confirm this.

"As I set off on my lunchtime walk I was so happy thinking about how we would celebrate the good news," she said.

Today, a screen stood between the professional woman and her teenage rapist Bailey Meredith, 17, so she wouldn't again have to see his face.

He wasn't keen on being seen anyway, hanging his head so low in the dock that only his shoulder blades, in their grey prison-issue sweatshirt, were visible. He rose up only slightly as the judge imposed her sentence.

Meredith was jailed for eight years for the attack on the woman, who cannot be identified, who was on her regular lunchtime walk.

He had previously admitted a charge of rape, four of sexual violation and one each of abduction, wounding with intent and threatening to kill.

The court heard the chilling details of the prolonged attack on the banks of the Hutt River. It began when Meredith grabbed the woman from behind.

He forced her to kneel, took her glasses off and, after forcing her away from the walkway, pulled a knife, threatening to kill her.

An attempt to get away was unsuccessful and at one stage the woman thought she was going to be stabbed in the back.

Even after she said she might be pregnant, Meredith violated her. He kicked and stomped on her, breaking her ribs and smashing teeth. She lost consciousness.

In her victim impact statement, the woman said she could never return to the Hutt to work and described how she was paranoid about further attacks and felt like a prisoner in her own home.

This was particularly so in the days after the attack before Meredith's arrest, as the woman had been forced to give him her address.

Noises, like birds rustling or music, scare her as she worries she may not hear an intruder.

"While physical injuries heal quickly, others do not," the woman said.

"I have suffered and continue to suffer immense emotional harm as a result of the attack...

"The attack has tainted what should be a very happy time for us."

The woman's husband also spoke to the court, recalling the phonecall he received informing him of what happened.

"The love of my life was on the phone telling me that she'd been brutally beaten, violated and raped."

The man said he had "unspeakable rage and unbridled hatred" towards Meredith.

Meredith's mother and father watched on from the public gallery.

Outside court they embraced and his father acknowledged the woman's "incredibly hard" ordeal.

Meredith's mother said: "We really feel for the victims."

The Crown said Meredith showed no signs of remorse and blamed what happened on his temper and reaction to drugs he was taking.

Defence lawyer Mike Kilbride said Meredith was remorseful, but at the time was struggling with a relationship break-up and a long-term drug dependency and had threatened to take his own life.

Meredith told a probation officer his life since leaving school at 14 or 15 was "aimless and lazy" and he started using cannabis when he was 11.