A man was yesterday packed off for one of New Zealand's longest non-parole jail sentences for sex offending, still denying responsibility for violating a woman twice his age in an early morning burglary of her Hastings home.
Tairon McLean Tuhou, 30, was sentenced to a minimum 12 years as part of a preventive-detention sentence - having previously spent more than six years in jail for a startlingly similar pre-Christmas attack in Napier in 1997.
The sentence was imposed by Justice Alan MacKenzie in the High Court in Napier on three charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection for indignities committed on the 64-year-old woman on July 27 last year, but denied at a trial two months ago.
A jury found him guilty also of one charge of robbery, one of burglary and one of assaulting a female relating to the attack, and one of burgling another house two nights earlier, when the woman and 8-year-old girl who lived there were out.
The 12-year term is one of the longest non-parole sentences imposed in New Zealand for single-complainant sex offences not involving murder, other serious violence or a charge of rape.
It is also the longest for sexual offending in Hawke's Bay since Junior Turoa Hapi was jailed for a minimum 15 years in July 1994 for raping and stabbing a 78-year-old woman found almost dead in her Bridge Pa home. It was the first such sentence in New Zealand after changes to the Criminal Justice Act in September 1993.
With preventive detention inevitable yesterday, Crown prosecutor Steve Manning argued for a 14-year minimum term, while defence counsel Eric Forster suggested eight. Mr Manning compared the circumstances with those of Roger Kahui, 37, handed a minimum 16 years last year for the multiple rape of a woman, also 37, while burgling her Pukekohe home. Kahui had served an eight-year sentence after he and another man broke into a Palmerston North house in 1991 and attacked two women.
Justice Alan MacKenzie accepted psychiatric, psychological and Probation Service reports, assessing Tuhou as an "extremely high risk" of reoffending if allowed out of jail. Assessments displayed deceitfulness, lack of remorse, failure to take responsibility and a deviance for forced sexual activity, the judge said.
The victim of the sexual violation was not in court, but a victim-impact statement was read in which she told of her fears returning to the home where she woke to find Tuhou. He blindfolded her and subjected her to a range of violations.
As well, he took cash, and as he had in the first burglary two nights earlier, sprinkled pepper in the belief it would mask his tracks and prevent his identification.
But he left behind a Work and Income letter in his name and, when police arrived at his home two days later, they found items taken from the houses.
The woman told how she could not return home for months after the attack in which she received internal injuries. The fear mounted as darkness fell each night, and she would wake suddenly and in fear early in the morning. It had got to the point where her family wanted her to sell and get out for the sake of her health, but it was something she had never wanted to do. She had tried counselling, seen doctors but: "It does not stop the fear. I hope one day I will feel safe in my home."
The second victim said in a statement read for her that while she was relieved no one was present when Tuhou entered her home she felt guilt at being unable to do anything which would have prevented what happened in another home nearby two days later.
Tuhou's childhood background, involving violence at home, truancy and expulsion from school were cited by Mr Forster as triggers for drug and alcohol abuse, inability to obtain regular employment and his offending.
No friends or family of Tuhou were in court for the sentencing, which included concurrent terms of two years on each charge of burglary and robbery, and six months for assault.
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