Tauranga man Noel Candy has been sentenced for sexual offending against two children - a brother and sister - which happened about 47 years ago, when he was 18.
Warning: This story deals with the sexual abuse of children and may be distressing for some readers.
A brother and sister say they both lived with guilt, shame and confusion following sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of an older relative when they were children, more than four decades ago.
But it was only as adults that they realised they’d both been victims, as each had thought they were the only one.
They were targeted by Noel Raymond Candy, who is 65 but was just 18 at the time.
The siblings had been staying with extended family, where he too was staying.
Candy continues to deny the historical offending for which a jury found him guilty on three charges of indecency with a girl under 12, and one of indecent assault on a man or boy.
In the Tauranga District Court this week, he was sentenced to nine-and-a-half months’ home detention.
Judge Melinda Mason noted the difficulty with the sentencing process in this case was the lapse of time.
“The tariffs in these charges have changed, and even the nature of the charges have changed since then to what you would be facing today, both in the type of charge and in the actual penalties,” she said.
It was difficult for both the Crown and defence to find comparative cases from around the time, with the offending happening sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s.
Over the course of one or two nights, Candy sexually assaulted both children, then primary-aged, by going into their room and removing blankets and clothes to indecently touch them. One of the children was made to perform a sexual act on him.
One had told him to “go away” and that she was worried her relatives would hear.
He had told her to be quiet and that it would be okay, and said it would be their “little secret”.
The other had also told him to go away, but was told by Candy to “shush”.
Both victims told the court the long-term effects on them had been profound, with both of them keeping it a secret well into their adult years.
The woman said she first confided in her daughter because she wanted to protect her from Candy, whom they still saw at family functions. She’d had years of being “unable to articulate the experience”.
She had remembered the night of the abuse, but it wasn’t until her teens that she’d understood what Candy had done to her.
Her “lack of confidence, feelings of shame, confusion and self-doubt” hindered her from disclosing it.
She thought her parents wouldn’t believe her, and became introverted, emotionally isolated and started making “poor relationship decisions”.
“I was angry, hurt and confused,” she said in her victim impact statement, read in court.
It wasn’t until about nine years after she’d first confided in her daughter, that she learned her brother had also been a victim.
“We both agreed to report this to the police based on the fears that there may be other victims,” she said.
Her brother also gave a victim impact statement, speaking about the particular shame and guilt he’d felt as a male victim of sexual abuse.
“I remember feeling confused, scared and ashamed, even though I didn’t fully understand what had happened,” he said.
“I didn’t know how to tell anyone and I didn’t want to get in trouble, so I stayed silent. As I grew older and began to understand more about the world, I realised the full extent of what had happened ... what had been done to me.”
But by that time, the “damage had been done”.
He’d become angry, withdrawn and introverted, which often manifested in fights or aggressive behaviour.
He carried “deep shame, embarrassment and fear about being judged, especially as a male victim of abuse”, he said.
“I worried people would see me as weak, different or damaged. Unfortunately, that’s how I saw myself.”
He’d struggled with his mental health and had been overly protective of his own children, fearing they too would be abused.
He had witnessed his sister’s behaviour when she was a teen and was acting out and struggling in ways that caused “conflict and pain” in their family.
“At the time, I didn’t understand why she was behaving that way, but I later learned that she too had been abused by the same [man].”
Both siblings had been confused by an offer of restorative justice that followed a trial, where Candy expressed no remorse, nor took responsibility.
They had no interest in an emotional harm repayment of $2500.
In terms of sentencing, the Crown said the aggravating factors included the breach of trust and the age of the children at the time.
The Crown said the degree of indecency was high, given that it involved skin-on-skin contact with the victims’ genitalia.
“The Crown highlighted that in modern-day times, your offending would have been defined as sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, which has far greater seriousness in terms of the maximum penalties,” the judge said.
“But of course, we’re not dealing with that. We’re dealing with the crimes as they occurred back then.”
Defence lawyer Bill Nabney highlighted Candy’s young age at the time, and that he’d not offended since then.
Several of Candy’s family members provided letters of support, describing him as a trustworthy family man.
Judge Mason adopted a starting point of 18 months’ imprisonment for the first victim, based on cases from the time that she felt were comparable. She uplifted this by six months for the second victim.
She applied a 10% discount for Candy’s age at the time, and a further 10% for his personal factors, including his good character.
This resulted in an end sentence of 19 months’ imprisonment, which she agreed to commute to one of nine-and-a-half months’ home detention.
The judge said were it not for the significant lapse in time since the offending, she wouldn’t have granted this.
“But given that you haven’t been in trouble for 47 years, home detention will be imposed,” she said.
Candy will be subject to six months’ post-detention conditions, but won’t be registered on the Child Sex Offenders Register.
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.