A woman was 17 years old and had a newborn when sexual offending against her by her brother-in-law started. Photo / 123rf
A woman was 17 years old and had a newborn when sexual offending against her by her brother-in-law started. Photo / 123rf
WARNING: This article deals with sexual violation and family violence and may be upsetting for some readers.
A young mother was sexually violated by her brother-in-law almost weekly for four years and was disbelieved when she tried to tell her family.
However, a judge did believe her and herabuser is now beginning a lengthy jail term, after which he will be deported.
“I will never forgive you. I will never forget the times you traumatised me,” the woman told her brother-in-law in a victim impact statement she read to the Napier District Court.
The woman said one of the saddest parts of her ordeal was that her father, one of the family members who did not believe her story, died before he could learn the truth.
The woman told the court that she first met her abuser when he and her family were living in another country more than a decade ago.
“I never liked you at all because I knew something was wrong with you,” she said.
In the years that followed, the victim and her family, and the man, relocated to New Zealand.
At the time the abuse began, the victim was spending the weekends at her parents’ home, where the man and his wife, the victim’s sister, also resided.
The man would go into the room where she slept at the Hastings address and sexually violate her.
He did this “almost on a weekly basis” for more than four years.
The abuse came to an end around 2022 and the man went on to be charged with two counts of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection – one specifically for the first time he did it, and a representative charge for all the subsequent occasions.
He was also charged with indecent assault, relating to a time when he touched her through her underwear and asked her for sex.
Man denied offending happened
The man denied the abuse had happened but was found guilty by Judge Duncan Harvey after a trial in February.
The man was also convicted of family violence against his wife, including a time when he swung a knife at her in a car and another when he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her around a room.
He pushed her to the ground on another occasion, causing her to fall on to her stomach when she was more than 30 weeks pregnant.
Judge Harvey sent the man to prison for seven years for the sexual offending and added a cumulative sentence of 18 months for the family violence, resulting in an overall sentence of eight years and six months.
The court was told the man was an overstayer who would be deported upon release from prison.
Judge Duncan Harvey said the woman's evidence had the "ring of truth". Photo / NZME
Judge Harvey’s decision after the trial recorded parts of a police interview the sexual abuse victim gave in which she recalled the point where she had “had enough”.
“I told [my sister] and my Dad about it, and both didn’t believe me,” she said.
The sister gave evidence at trial in which she confirmed the victim had told her what the man had been doing, but she did not believe her.
The man denied the allegations when interviewed by police.
His lawyer submitted at trial that the Crown had not proven the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.
But Judge Harvey focused on evidence related to an incident soon after the man arrived in New Zealand, where he asked the victim, his sister-in-law, to take her pants down and show him her genitals.
Evidence had ‘ring of truth’
“That evidence has a ring of truth,” the judge’s decision said.
“It would be an extraordinary thing for [the woman] who ... appeared totally without guile and relatively unsophisticated, to invent such an incident.
“What makes the evidence so important in my view, however, is that it establishes that from the time the defendant arrived in New Zealand, he had a sexual interest in [his sister-in-law].
“I found [the woman] to be a very careful witness. During the course of her evidence, it was put to her on a number of occasions that she was a liar.
“On each occasion, she quietly and calmly said that she would not lie about things like this.
“Despite various propositions being put to her, she remained consistent, and she did not retract or modify what she had already said.”
Judge Harvey said that the woman’s explanation for not complaining earlier also rang true, and research had established “very clearly” that victims of sexual abuse do not necessarily avoid their abuser, because of family dynamics.
He found the man guilty of the sexual violation and indecent assault charges.
At the sentencing hearing, the woman said that “the darkness lifted” when she heard that the man had been found guilty.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.
