Warning: This story includes details of sexual assault and may be distressing.
Teen rapist Jayden Meyer has been found guilty of sexually violating another teenage girl.
The latest violation occurred when he was 16, and hours after he’d been bailed on charges relating to the rape and sexual violation of five girls, for which he was later convicted.
A police summary of facts for the latest offending said Meyer was arrested at 5pm on June 18, 2021, for the earlier offending.
He was then released into his father’s custody at 7.13pm.
That same night, just before midnight, he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl at his father’s home, despite a bail condition that he was not to be left unsupervised with any female under 16.
The latest offending was the focus of a trial held in the Tauranga District Court this week.
The now 21-year-old had name suppression to ensure he received a fair trial.
But today a jury returned a guilty verdict, meaning Jayden Meyer can now be named and his previous convictions revealed.
Meyer hit the headlines in 2022 after NZME revealed a judge sentenced him to nine months’ home detention for the rape of four teens and the sexual violation of a fifth.
A psychologist, who saw Meyer 30 times during the prosecution of that case, found he had a medium risk of reoffending, and continued to minimise the effect of his crimes.
Young people took to the streets in protest, and the publicity of the case led to the teen girl at the centre of this week’s trial making a police report.
The defence argued this week that the teen was “embarrassed” about a consensual hook-up with Meyer after seeing the news, and wanted to “distance herself” from it, given what others in her peer group were saying about him.
However, the Crown pointed to the fact she’d confided in one close friend in the weeks following the sexual assault, a year before Meyer’s convictions were reported by the media.
The events of the trial centred on what was described as a “typical teen night” – chatting and listening to music played on a phone.
Meyer’s father, Desmond Meyer, gave evidence that he checked on the teens “six or seven times” throughout the evening, and they were instructed to keep the lights on and the bedroom door open.
Despite this, he had not seen the light switch off towards the end of the night, nor kissing between Meyer and the girl, and between the other teens who were in the room with them.
The victim described feeling “frozen” while the assault occurred, and not knowing what to do. She said she’d told Meyer “no” after he unbuttoned her jeans and violated her.
She said she mumbled, “I don’t want this”, but he responded, “It’s okay”. She described having her legs “glued shut” to signal sexual contact was not wanted.
Lawyer Rachael Adams pointed to inconsistencies in the girl’s evidence, and the fact that her best friend, who told the court she never left the room, didn’t see anything other than kissing.
The Crown said that wasn’t surprising, given the friend had been preoccupied with kissing her own boyfriend that night, and wouldn’t have had “eyes on” Meyer and the girl.
In the weeks following the assault, the teen girl told that friend what happened.
The Crown highlighted both this, and the girl’s behaviour, observed by her mother, following the incident.
She had been self-harming, had become withdrawn and “not herself”, causing her mother to seek help from their GP.
Today the jury returned a majority guilty verdict after about five hours’ deliberation.
Meyer’s mother, who supported him in court, sobbed into her hands after the verdict was delivered.
During the trial, Meyer maintained his innocence, revealing that he denied not only the current offending, but also events with other young women that had led to his earlier convictions.
Under cross-examination, he told the Crown prosecutor he suspected the teen girl had falsely accused him of violating her, because she’d heard “nasty things” about him that “weren’t true”.
The Crown pressed him on this, putting to him that those “nasty things” related to matters for which he had convictions.
He confirmed this, but said he maintained his innocence for those allegations, too.
Prosecutor Ian Murray asked him if he considered himself to be the “beacon of truth” amid what Meyer claimed were false allegations from multiple women, including the current complainant.
“Yes,” Meyer replied.
While the jury knew he had convictions for sexual offending, they did not know the exact charges, nor the facts or circumstances, and were warned not to make internet searches.
Judge Paul Geoghegan also warned against using the fact of the convictions in their reasoning of his guilt – thinking that because he’d committed sexual offences before, he must have done so this time.
But the jury was permitted to consider the convictions when assessing the defendant’s credibility, given his assertion that “the rumours weren’t true”.
Meyer was first charged in 2021 after multiple police complaints by young women in the Bay of Plenty who alleged sexual violence across 2020 and 2021.
An investigation followed, resulting in 10 charges, including four of rape, four of sexual violation, and two of doing an indecent act.
There were five young female victims, four of whom were raped and one who was sexually violated.
All five victims were aged 15 at the time of the assaults – the same age as the victim in this week’s trial.
Meyer pleaded not guilty to all charges but was later found guilty.
At his sentencing in April 2022, Crown prosecutor Anna Pollett and Meyer’s lawyer submitted that a sentence of home detention would be most appropriate.
That was despite the Crown accepting imprisonment would be the ordinary sentence for this sort of offending; “and indeed one of many years”.
Judge Christopher Harding agreed, saying a sentence of imprisonment was typical for the level of offending Meyer had committed and was “undoubtedly correct”.
However, he sentenced Meyer to home detention, saying he accepted a probation report and the submissions made by counsel.
After publicity and protests about the sentence, the Crown appealed the sentence.
The High Court was scathing of how the case was handled, with Justice Sally Fitzgerald describing the sentence as being “manifestly inadequate”.
Despite that, she declined the appeal and said, “in the unique circumstances of this case, the interests of justice are best served by declining the Crown’s application”.
Justice Fitzgerald concluded the sentencing process “lacked transparency” and said it undermined public confidence in the justice system.
Meyer has now been remanded in custody before sentencing next year, in relation to the latest offending.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.