Rapist jailed for 13 years

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A woman who had an abortion after becoming pregnant to her rapist, has told a court she would feed her attacker to pigs if she had her way.

The woman read a statement aloud in Gisborne District Court during sentencing for Johnny Semmens, 31, who raped her and another woman in similar circumstances within three months last year.

Semmens was found guilty by a jury earlier this year of both rapes and an associated charge of unlawful sexual connection in respect of one of the complainants.

Judge Warren Cathcart jailed Semmens for 13 years with a minimum non-parole period of six and a half years.

Semmens was a sexual predator, who continued to deny his offending and posed a high risk of further similar offending, the judge said.

Prosecutor Jo Rielly told the court Semmens had a long list of previous convictions, including four for sexual offending, albeit less serious than these incidents.

Judge Cathcart noted there were also two youth court notations for sexual offences by Semmens.

To a sentence starting point of 12 years, two months’ imprisonment the judge added 10 months for that previous history. Semmens also received a three strikes warning.

Describing the offending, Judge Cathcart said there was a pattern to it. Both incidents involved Semmens seizing a moment to take advantage of acutely vulnerable women significantly incapacitated by alcohol.

He raped each of them while they were unconscious.

The women were not known to each other. Semmens was a stranger to the first victim but present at the same social gathering where he raped her while they were momentarily alone. That victim, a mother to several children with her long-term partner, fell pregnant to Semmens and had to have an abortion.

The other woman already knew Semmens, but not well. She invited him inside for a drink one evening as he passed by her property. Her sister was also there. Semmens was asked to leave when the women went to bed but he remained, went into the victim’s room where he woke up a male who was asleep on a couch there and told him to go, then raped the sleeping woman.

Both women were profoundly affected by the offending, the court was told.

The second woman chose not to attend the sentencing hearing but the first woman was there and read from her victim impact statement.

What Semmens did to her had changed her personality, the woman said. She used to love to socialise and be around people but now she was housebound, scared, and fearful. She never thought such a thing could happen to her as family woman with several children.

Semmens stole her mana wairua, the woman said.

Having to have an abortion negated her moral beliefs.

Since the incident, she had twice contemplated suicide. She did not want to live in shame and fear. But she saw her future in her children, they were her world, and needed her.

She knew Semmens had children too and asked him to consider what sort of values he was teaching and setting for them.

She had to move across town, which caused her huge financial burden, and was undergoing counselling to help regain her confidence. She wanted to be healed to feel free again.