Man caught in act of indecently assaulting missing 13-year-old

Taylor pleaded guilty after being caught in the act of violating a young teen. Photo / File

A policeman's instincts when out looking for a missing 13-year-old girl in Napier led to finding her being sexually violated by a drunken man.

But the discovery also led to a jail term of five years and six months for 56-year-old David Bernard Taylor, who ashamedly admitted the offending although claiming to remember little of it.

The details of the events of one day in July this year unfolded on Friday in Napier District Court.

Judge Bridget Mackintosh noted the shame and remorse shown by a man who had a variety of health complaints stemming from a back injury which had stopped him from working for several years.

But he was also a "chronic alcoholic", whose offences had caused serious trauma for the girl, who, the judge said wanted to be safe knowing Taylor would be going to jail.

Taylor pleaded guilty to one charge of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and one of indecent assault, resulting from incidents after he encountered the girl walking on a suburban Napier street.

Taylor wiped tears from his eyes and faced away from the public gallery as the judge related how the two met on the street and returned to his home, where he started to play a sex video before making his advances.

The judge said it was clear the girl did not want to do what he was forcing on her.

When a police officer inquiring of the girl's whereabouts came to the door, Taylor denied she was in the house, but the officer returned, went to the rear of the property and discovered Taylor pulling up his trousers.

Defence counsel Matt Dixon said Taylor was "severely intoxicated" at the time and horrified to learn what he had done.

"It was completely out-of-character offending," Dixon said.