“He knew the terms of his bail … he had the ability to decide he should not be remotely close to a 15-year-old female.”
Rachael Adams, counsel for Meyer, who is now in his 20s, accepted that and said, “to describe that as poor judgment would be a ridiculous understatement”.
Meyer appeared for sentencing in the Tauranga District Court yesterday via audio-visual link, after a jury trial last year in which he was found guilty of sexual violation.
The background to this offending was that he had been arrested on June 18, 2021, in respect of suspected offending involving the rape, sexual violation, and indecent assault of five different complainants between July 1, 2020, and January, 9, 2021.
He was 16 at the time and was released on bail on the condition he was not to be left unsupervised with any female under 16.
But that night a 15-year-old girl, together with two other teens, arrived at Meyer’s address, which was the home of his father and father’s partner.
The evidence of the victim, which the judge said was “clearly accepted by the jury”, was that when she was alone in a room with Meyer, he sat next to her and began kissing her.
He unbuttoned her jeans and violated her, despite her saying “no”.
She said she pressed her thighs together to deter Meyer, but he persisted, and she described feeling “frozen” and not knowing what to do.
The offending was interrupted by the victim receiving texts on her phone, giving her an opportunity to leave.
Meyer wasn’t charged for this offending until September 2023.
By then, he had already been convicted of four charges of rape, four of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, and two of indecent assault in respect of the offending he’d been arrested for on June 18, 2021.
Victim became ‘withdrawn’, ‘guarded’ and ‘uncertain’
The parents of the victim in the latest offending said their daughter had changed after Meyer’s sexual assault.
She became withdrawn, lost her confidence and no longer felt safe in situations where she once would have.
“The happy, trusting girl we knew became more guarded and uncertain,” the victim impact statement read.
She had needed counselling because of Meyer’s actions and continued to receive support.
Meyer’s actions had affected “their whole family” as they watched her suffering, “knowing we could not take away her pain”.
“For four years, we lived with this hanging over us while waiting for this to come to trial. That is four years of stress and uncertainty … ” the statement said.
When it came to sentencing, there were aspects on which the Crown and defence agreed, including a starting point of two and a half years’ jail, and an uplift of three months for offending while on bail.
They also agreed on a 30% discount for Meyer’s youth.
At sentencing, there was also reference to a decision by Justice Sally Fitzgerald that related to the earlier offending.
Judge Geoghegan said while it was necessary to “traverse the history” of Meyer’s case, Meyer was “not being punished for that previous offending”, for which he’d already been sentenced.
For that earlier offending, Meyer had been sentenced to nine months’ home detention, together with 12 months’ post-detention conditions, after the case was transferred to the district court from the youth court.
Young people took to the streets in protest, and the reporting of the case led to the teen girl in the recent case making a report to police.
Outraged young people in Tauranga marched against the sentence of convicted rapist Jayden Meyer. Photo / Andrew Warner
The Solicitor-General sought to appeal against the earlier sentence, and although the application for leave to appeal was declined in the High Court, Justice Fitzgerald found that the nine-month home detention sentence was “manifestly inadequate”.
Judge Geoghegan noted she’d endorsed the transfer to the district court but adopted a starting point of 10 years’ imprisonment which, after discounts were applied – including 30% for Meyer’s youth – indicated the appropriate end sentence was one of three years and five months in prison.
“That assessment is helpful in determining how to sentence in this matter,” Judge Geoghegan said at yesterday’s hearing.
Discounts sought – and the possibility of home detention
The main areas of disagreement between the Crown and defence were discounts for personal hardship, prospects of rehabilitation and the suitability of a home detention sentence.
A psychological report assessed Meyer as having a low risk of reoffending, noting he had been undergoing treatment and seemed to have gained some understanding of consent.
However, it also said there had been a “pattern” during the period of Meyer’s offending of “sexually entitled decision-making, in which gratification tended to take precedence over the autonomy of others once sexual activity commenced”.
Jayden Meyer, pictured leaving the Tauranga District Court after a court appearance in 2022. Photo / Ethan Griffiths
The report said this was “repeated across several victims”, reflecting a “consistent behavioural stance” rather than “isolated misjudgments”.
Crown prosecutor Laura Clay said that “summed up” Meyer’s offending and she questioned his prospects of rehabilitation given he continued to deny the offending.
The judge said he sensed that Meyer was “engaging in a significant journey of getting to grips with what has occurred and the seriousness of [his] offending”.
He was prepared to give the “modest” 5% discount sought by defence for prospects of rehabilitation, particularly given Meyer was young.
Defence lawyer Rachael Adams also sought a discount for Meyer’s personal hardship.
His mother was battling cancer and had been through invasive surgery, and Meyer was “an only child with an extremely close relationship to his mother”.
“She is isolated, he is isolated, and there has been significant hardship to them both in their inability to support each other through this,” Adams said.
Jayden Meyer appeared via audio-visual link for sentencing in the Tauranga District Court.
She also said that young people primarily communicated with social media and Meyer had been “completely isolated from any of that social interaction and will be for some significant period to come”.
It was significant that the relationships he’d been able to maintain were those with his parents, particularly his mother, who had been “his absolutely loyalest supporter through this process”.
She also pointed to the hardship suffered following the “extraordinary vilification publicly and through social media in relation to [Meyer’s] previous offending”.
However, the judge agreed with the Crown that, while he was sympathetic in particular to Meyer’s mother’s health battles, the difficulties were not sufficient to warrant the 5% allowance sought by Adams.
Judge Geoghegan arrived at an end sentence of 22 months’ imprisonment, which left open the question of whether it should be commuted to home detention.
The judge had already indicated he had no issue with the address proposed, and noted Adams had pointed to several factors that supported a sentence of home detention.
“Namely, the absence of aggravating factors in the offending, your rehabilitation and the low risk of reoffending, the suitability of the proposed residence, and your previous positive completion of a home detention sentence, and, of course, your youth,” Judge Geoghegan said.
However, the judge said this needed to be weighed against a presumption in the Crimes Act whereby a person convicted of sexual violation must be sentenced to imprisonment unless the court considers that should not be the outcome, based on surrounding circumstances.
Adams had referred Judge Geoghegan to another case in which a man was sentenced to home detention for similar offending, but the judge said there were significant differences.
“Here, there has been no recognition of wrongdoing. There has been no remorse. There has been no acceptance of responsibility for your offending. You did not enter a guilty plea. You have not undertaken any rehabilitative programmes or treatment other than those directed by the court.”
While it was a “finely balanced matter”, the judge said he’d reached the view there was a need for “clear denunciation and deterrence”.
“The fact that this offending was committed within hours of you being released by the police in respect of alleged offending, of which you were subsequently convicted, in circumstances which appear to have been in clear breach of bail, combined with the presumption of imprisonment, outweigh your particular personal circumstances,” the judge said.
Meyer has been in custody since the conclusion of his trial in October last year.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.