Tauranga man given home detention after sexually exploiting 'significantly impaired' woman

Samuel Kenneth Smith was sentenced to 12 months' home detention for sexually exploiting a significantly impaired woman. Photo / NZME

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A Bay of Plenty man will be spending the next 12 months locked away in his home after sexually exploiting a significantly impaired woman.

Samuel Kenneth Smith, 38, was sentenced by Judge Thomas Ingram in the Tauranga District Court this week, after pleading guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a person with significant impairment.

According to the summary of facts, the offending occurred in the Bay of Plenty in 2019. The exact location and circumstances of the offending, as well as the nature of the victim's impairment were suppressed.

The summary states Smith lured the woman to the location of the offending by promising to buy her takeaways.

It was then that Smith engaged in the sexual offending.

Judge Ingram said Smith has a long-standing mental disorder himself, described within a probation report as "challenging".

That probation report, penned by the Department of Corrections, noted opposition to a community sentence such as home detention.

The reasons for that opposition were not shared by Judge Ingram who said the concerns of Corrections officers were not compelling enough to rule out a community-based sentence.

The Crown submitted a sentence starting point between three and three-and-a-half years' imprisonment would be appropriate.

Judge Ingram accepted that a period of imprisonment was appropriate considering the nature of the offending, but the mental health circumstances of the defendant didn't make that realistic.

"I'm satisfied that putting you in prison will have no conceivable benefit to anybody, and that a sentence of home detention is a much better sentence from every point of view."

Judge Ingram sentenced Smith to a period of 12 months' home detention - the maximum home detention sentence available to him. An additional 12-month period of restrictions after the initial sentence would also be put in place.

"The Department [of Corrections] is going to rule your life for the next little bit, and you have to do what you're told."

Two additional charges of rape were dismissed after the Crown chose to provide no evidence.