Bay of Plenty<\/a> for a while, but had since returned to Tauranga. <\/p>\nThe girl felt like she was \u201cwalking on eggshells when visiting family or friends\u201d and kept \u201clooking around corners, hoping he\u2019s not there\u201d.<\/p>\n
She was comforted knowing he would now be serving a sentence \u201cbehind bars\u201d and was no longer a threat to her or her siblings.<\/p>\n
While the court process was now over, the trauma of what had happened lingered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the war is over, but it doesn\u2019t feel like it is. This should be the end of the misery, but it honestly doesn\u2019t feel like it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll eventually find a way to cope, but currently I\u2019m pushing my way through the constant fear, anger, depression and anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n
She hoped her stepfather knew the damage he had done, but said she wouldn\u2019t let it destroy her.<\/p>\n
As her statement was read, supporters of the man sat in the public gallery, shaking their heads.<\/p>\n
\u2018Trapped\u2019 in a house with repeated abuse<\/p>\n
The man, who can\u2019t be named in order to protect the girl\u2019s identity, was found guilty by a jury on three representative charges of indecent assault, one of specific indecent assault, one representative charge of doing an indecent act, and one assault on a person in a family relationship.<\/p>\n
The representative charges related to repeated actions by the man.<\/p>\n
He would go into the 12-year-old girl\u2019s bedroom, sit on her bed, and touch her breasts on top of her clothes.<\/p>\n
He would also have skin-to-skin contact, breathe on her neck, and attempt to kiss her.<\/p>\n
There was repeated grabbing of her buttocks and genital area when she was in the kitchen, and this was said to have occurred two or three times a week for more than two years.<\/p>\n
One of the charges related to him putting his hands down her pants, being told to stop, and ignoring her. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was said you were able to get her to the ground, pin her arms, and then used your hand to grope her vaginal area,\u201d Judge Christopher Harding said, in his summary of the evidence heard at trial.<\/p>\n
Another charge related to him standing in the 12-year-old\u2019s doorway to call her for dinner, holding his genitalia through his pants, looking at the girl and asking her \u201cto suck that\u201d.<\/p>\n
The assault charge related to an incident where she had spilled some coffee, and the man slapped her across the face with an open palm, causing her to fall back on the bed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was an ongoing, repetitive series of offences against a girl effectively trapped in the home with you as her stepfather,\u201d Judge Harding said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAggravating your offending was the abuse of trust, the vulnerability of the victim, and the premeditation to the extent that this was, albeit opportunistic possibly on individual occasions, an ongoing series of events which must have been intended.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Crown sought a starting point of four years\u2019 imprisonment, with discounts of no more than 5%, and said that prison was appropriate.<\/p>\n
Defence lawyer Bill Nabney said the Crown\u2019s suggested starting point was too high, and a starting point of between two-and-a-half years and three years was more appropriate, and submitted home detention could be a possible outcome.<\/p>\n
Nabney pointed to the \u201csignificant support\u201d the man had, and he had supplied the court with reference letters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey all point to a situation suggesting that this is entirely out of character, and you continue to have that wide support,\u201d Judge Harding said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI simply must observe that they obviously didn\u2019t know what was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Harding said the pre-sentence report noted the victim\u2019s vulnerability and the prolonged nature of the indecent behaviour.<\/p>\n
It said the man maintained his innocence and had no remorse.<\/p>\n
It referred to the man\u2019s challenging upbringing, having been passed around to various family members, and noted \u201cantagonistic attitudes to women\u201d, and that he had a bipolar condition.<\/p>\n
The man offered emotional harm reparation, which the judge said did not seem to be motivated by a desire to help the victim, but rather for \u201cthe assistance of himself\u201d at sentencing.<\/p>\n
Although the man had previous convictions, the judge said they were limited and \u201cmainly to do with anger\u201d, and no uplift was sought by the Crown.<\/p>\n
The judge adopted a starting point of three-and-a-half years\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n
He gave an \u201cextremely limited\u201d discount for the offer of emotional harm reparation, and \u201csome discount\u201d for the difficulties of the man\u2019s upbringing.<\/p>\n
The collective discount for those two factors was six months, bringing the end sentence to three years\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n
The man will be registered on the Child Sex Offenders Register, and he was ordered to pay $1000 in emotional harm reparation.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But a jury did believe her, convicting the man on six charges, which largely related to repeated indecent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13119,2082,66305,22500,5158,111,43,139,69,90,10056,5161,116551,1529,61,1530],"class_list":{"0":"post-364552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-assaults","9":"tag-for","10":"tag-imprisonment","11":"tag-indecent","12":"tag-man","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-on","18":"tag-repeated","19":"tag-sentenced","20":"tag-stepdaughter","21":"tag-three","22":"tag-to","23":"tag-years"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}