A man who has had his jail sentence for committing a series of brutal and degrading acts on a prostitute reduced was apparently acting out pornography on his computer.
The Court of Appeal in Wellington said Sumit Narayan, 24, of Auckland, was wrongly given an indefinite jail term of preventive detention, and instead sentenced him to 15 years' jail.
Under the preventive detention sentence, Narayan would not have been eligible to be considered for parole for at least 10 years.
Narayan was found guilty of four counts of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, two of aggravated robbery, and one of attempted sexual violation. He pleaded guilty to having a restricted weapon, pepper spray.
On November 12, 2000, he robbed one sex worker he had lured into his car on the pretext of giving him oral sex.
Later the same evening he picked up another woman and also robbed her. When she escaped from his car, he pulled her back by her hair at knifepoint.
He forced her to give him oral sex and performed various acts on her.
Police found large quantities of hardcore pornography on his computer, including some showing the acts he performed against the victim.
The Court of Appeal said that before imposing preventive detention, a judge had to be satisfied of a substantial risk of Narayan's committing a specified sex or violence offence in future.
The court said two psychiatrists who examined Narayan said they could not reach that conclusion and there was no other evidence on which the judge could have made her finding, so the preventive detention sentence had to be quashed.
But it was callous, brutal and degrading treatment which deserved a very substantial jail term.
- NZPA
Court cuts sentence on 'brutal' sex attacker
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