WARNING: This story is about sexual offending<\/p>\n
Intoxicated after an evening at the pub, Michael Knight decided to walk 4km home with a woman more than 20 years his junior.<\/p>\n
It was there that he sexually assaulted her and raped her as she pretended to be asleep in her bedroom.<\/p>\n
The woman told the Invercargill District Court that Knight was \u201csupposed to be someone I could trust and feel safe around, someone who would protect me from dangerous people. Instead [he] became the very person I needed protection from\u201d.<\/p>\n
The pair had known each other for some time but the nature of the relationship was suppressed by the court.<\/p>\n
Now Knight has been sentenced by Judge Russell Walker to seven years and seven months\u2019 imprisonment after a jury found him guilty on two charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, and one of rape.<\/p>\n
In a recently released decision, Walker said Knight was found not guilty in relation to four other charges related to incidents alleged to have occurred on the walk home from the pub on January 18, 2025.<\/p>\n
The sentencing, therefore, focused on the charges relating to Knight\u2019s actions after the pair arrived at his home around 3am.<\/p>\n
The victim went to bed and, shortly afterwards, Knight entered the room she was staying in. She continued to lie motionless in bed with her eyes shut, pretending to be asleep.<\/p>\n
Knight knelt on the floor next to the victim, removed her lower clothing and sexually violated her before raping her.<\/p>\n
The jury rejected Knight\u2019s suggestion that his actions were consensual or that he had a reasonable belief in consent.<\/p>\n
Judge Walker said the age gap between the pair was more than 20 years, with Knight being 46 at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat disparity in age is also a factor that overlaps, to some extent, with victim vulnerability,\u201d Judge Walker said in his decision.<\/p>\n
The victim read an impact statement to the court. The judge said it was \u201cclear that she has been significantly impacted by what occurred\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said that the impact of this offending on her life has been immense and that the ripple effect of it has also significantly impacted on other people she loves, especially her mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
A report was prepared by Corrections.<\/p>\n
During Knight\u2019s meeting with the report writer he was said to have made a number of conflicting statements that suggested his expressed remorse was more related to the situation in which he found himself in. It also suggested he did not accept full responsibility for his offending.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour comments also showed limited insight into the factors underpinning your offending,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou suggested that being under the influence of alcohol was a significant factor underlying what occurred, and your self-reported alcohol use, previous convictions, and a comment from one of the people who has supplied a written reference on your behalf, lend some support to this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Knight had previous offending relating to three traffic matters, two of which are excess breath alcohol matters in 2006 and 2015.<\/p>\n
His lawyer Hugo Young argued a 10% reduction on any starting point for previous good character was warranted, and he referred to a number of references that had been supplied in support of Knight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is always a difficult and somewhat controversial proposition in relation to offending of this type,\u201d Walker said in the decision.<\/p>\n
Walker granted a 5% reduction for previous good behaviour and was sentenced to seven years and seven months\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n
\u00a0– By Brianna McIlraith, Open Justice reporter\u00a0<\/p>\n
SEXUAL HARM<\/p>\n
Where to get help:
If it’s an emergency and you feel that you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
If you’ve ever experienced sexual assault or abuse and need to talk to someone, contact Safe to Talk confidentially, any time 24\/7:
\u2022 Call 0800 044 334
\u2022 Text 4334
\u2022 Email support@safetotalk.nz<\/a>
\u2022 For more info or to web chat visit safetotalk.nz
Alternatively contact your local police station – click here for a list.<\/a>
If you have been sexually assaulted, remember it’s not your fault.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WARNING: This story is about sexual offending Intoxicated after an evening at the pub, Michael Knight decided to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-524005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524005","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=524005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}