A victim of sexual grooming was "nowhere near mature enough" to make decisions against what was happening, a Hawke's Bay judge has said.
Yesterday Jeremy Richard McKay appeared for sentencing at Napier District Court.
He had earlier pleaded guilty to one charge of sexually grooming a young person, one charge of committing an indecent act with a young male between the age of 12 and 16 and two counts of sexual connection with a young person within that same age gap. The victim in this matter is also the complainant. The pair were known to each other.
McKay wore a crisp white shirt and a tie and stood with his head down clasping his hands behind his back.
The summary of facts states McKay had sexual connection with the victim a number of times, "estimated to be approximately 20 by the complainant", despite the victim's multiple protests.
McKay would offer the victim money, sums of $60 or $80 so he could continue the sexual connection.
The victim did not tell anyone because he was embarrassed, the summary states.
He told McKay he hated what was happening, but continued "due to a combination of the financial incentives" and threats McKay was making to tell others about the activity.
When police spoke with McKay in June last year, he admitted he had "quite a bit" of interaction with the complainant, "including sexual abuse of him".
He told police sexual contact, which had started two or three years previously, where he offered the victim money was "more or less like a trade-off".
He also admitted to police that he made electronic threats that he would tell people to the complainant.
Members of McKay's family sat in the public gallery, one of them wept.
The victim's family also attended court, but the victim did not.
Before Judge Tony Adeane handed McKay a sentence of seven months' home detention he said the victim was "nowhere near mature enough" to make decisions about what was going on.
McKay's lawyer told Judge Adeane his client suffered health issues which were "causative" of his offending.
Judge Adeane gave McKay a discount for entering an early guilty plea and sentenced him to home detention.
His lawyer argued for name suppression to continue and told the judge that if his client's name was made public it would have an effect on his family.
He said his client did not want his family to be upset.
But the crown opposed continued suppression and the judge said there was no basis for a final application with the reasons put forward for continued suppression being a result of "general embarrassment that flows from offending".
Following sentencing the two families embraced before leaving the courtroom together.