Crown prosecutor Courtney Martyn told the court that aside from sexual offending by family members against other family members, it was difficult to imagine a \u201cmore serious breach of trust\u201d.<\/p>\n
Vidhanage\u2019s lawyer, Thomas Harr\u00e9, acknowledged there had been \u201creal harm\u201d caused by his client\u2019s offending. That harm had also extended to his family, Harr\u00e9 said.<\/p>\n
He said that once Vidhanage served his time behind bars he would be deported to Sri Lanka, leaving his in-laws \u201cwithout any realistic prospect of seeing him\u201d while also putting his wife in a \u201crather difficult situation\u201d.<\/p>\n
Judge Farish said that Vidhanage had also subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of intimidation which related to him \u201caccosting or approaching\u201d an 11-year-old girl after she had left school.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou stopped your car, you asked her whether she wanted a cigarette, she declined. You then asked her whether she wanted a ride in your car she declined, and then you forcefully directed her to get in the car.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that point, she ran away very wisely and waited until you had left. And then as she was returning home she saw your vehicle, very courageously and bravely took down the number plate, went straight home and told her mother and you were subsequently apprehended.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Farish said Vidhanage would be deported after serving one-third of his sentence.<\/p>\n
She said Vidhanage continued to deny the offending, therefore she could not give him any credit for remorse.<\/p>\n
Judge Farish said there were several aggravating features of Vidhanage\u2019s offending, including the victims\u2019 vulnerability.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were vulnerable, not only because of the position they were in, in the early hours of the morning in a facility where they should have felt entitled to be safe, but they had both physical and mental vulnerabilities. They were incredibly fragile.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was also a significant breach of trust.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re there to provide care because they can no longer do that for themselves, and you abuse that trust, and that has caused huge issues in relation to that feeling of trust that families have when they place their elderly loved ones into care.\u201d<\/p>\n
She jailed Vidhanage for 10 years and six months.<\/p>\n
Care facility\u2019s battle for suppression<\/p>\n
A hearing was held in the Christchurch District Court regarding suppression last month, with the care facility where Vidhanage worked at requesting permanent name suppression.<\/p>\n
RNZ has obtained submissions filed by the facility in support of suppression.<\/p>\n
The facility\u2019s lawyer submitted it would suffer \u201cundue hardship\u201d if its details were published.<\/p>\n
The lawyer said there would be a \u201creal risk of unfair reputational damage\u201d to the company, staff and residents which could cause reputational and financial damage as well as be \u201cunfairly detrimental\u201d to its staff and future staff.<\/p>\n
The lawyer also submitted it may \u201cgravely impact and unduly concern the wellbeing of its residents\u201d and their families and lead to \u201cassociated and unnecessary stigma\u201d to all of the referenced groups of people.<\/p>\n
The manager recalled in an affidavit the \u201cabsolute horror\u201d she felt when she first heard the allegations against Vidhanage.<\/p>\n
The manager said the offending had a \u201csignificant impact\u201d on them and the facility\u2019s community.<\/p>\n
\u201cResidents should feel safe, cared for and loved in their home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has shaken myself and staff to our core, causing deep emotional distress which has exhibited physically in some of the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
The manager said they had previously had no reason to question Vidhanage. They said the \u201crobust employment vetting process\u201d did not raise any concerns regarding his suitability for the role.<\/p>\n
The facility had recently implemented a campaign aimed at \u201cfurther encouraging an environment where staff feel able to raise concerns\u201d.<\/p>\n
Media exposure would also impact staff, the manager said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor many it would be something unfathomable and would cause them considerable anxiety and distress.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy deep concern would be the flow-on effect for them, which would likely manifest in many different ways. If this further pain can be avoided, I believe that would enable us to move forward and it would be the best possible outcome for us all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Katie Elkin said she was satisfied that publication of the facility\u2019s name would be likely to cause undue hardship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI make that finding on the basis of the evidence that I have been given about the vulnerability of many of those residents in particular. I\u2019m concerned mostly about hardship to them and to other staff, rather than any commercial interest of the [facility].\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Elkin said there was no suggestion of \u201congoing for systemic issues\u201d or of any failings by the facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my view, it will not really assist in any way in relation to the care of these residents for them to know where this occurred and, in my view, naming of the [care facility] would risk unnecessarily and unjustifiably compromising the trust and care relationship between the carers and vulnerable residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Elkin granted permanent name suppression for the facility.<\/p>\n
In a statement to RNZ, Detective Tone Kopelani said his thoughts were with the victims and their families.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis sort of offending is very distressing for all those concerned, so it is pleasing to have someone held to account in the courts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe case involved vulnerable victims, and it was important to ensure they were properly supported, and their families were involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said police thanked the care facility for their assistance in terms of communicating with residents\u2019 family members as part of police inquiries.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo date, we do not believe there are any more victims from the facility, however we would ask anyone who does have concerns about potential criminal behaviour in respect of this matter to come forward to police.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crown prosecutor Courtney Martyn told the court that aside from sexual offending by family members against other family…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[95,9526,51247,27887,15453,2082,42,14641,10136,43,51246,15386,15768,40,38,41,39,1354],"class_list":["post-512795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-and","tag-another","tag-assaulting","tag-caregiver","tag-elderly","tag-for","tag-headlines","tag-jailed","tag-named","tag-news","tag-raping","tag-sexually","tag-sherwood","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512795","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=512795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}