A Porangahau farmer has been sentenced to 200 hours' community work for indecently assaulting a young woman who came from England for live-in work with his polo ponies and fled just four days later because of his sexual advances.
Robert George Willis, aged 59 at the time of the offence, had
denied the charge but a jury found him guilty at a trial in Napier District Court last month.
Back in court on Monday, Judge Bridget Mackintosh said Willis' defence was that nothing untoward happened and that the 19-year-old was lying.
"In my view she was a realistic and sensible woman who did not over-dramatise the situation at all, in circumstances where you would not take no for an answer," the judge said.
The teen was vulnerable, knew no one else in the area except those she met on her short stay, and was frightened by Willis' persistence to the point where she fled after four days and flew to Christchurch, Judge Mackintosh said.
The jury had been told the woman answered an advertisement placed on a specialist horse and pony website, and Willis paid for her flight to New Zealand.
There was inappropriate behaviour from the first night, on which she settled into her new surroundings by dining with Willis, who served oysters and occasionally touched the woman's legs.
The next day they attended a polo club day and barbecue, after which the offence happened in his vehicle, when, according to the woman's evidence, he pulled her head towards his crotch and gave her a "wet, sloppy, horrible kiss".
At night he entered her bedroom three times, and at one stage lifted the duvet and commented she hadn't "got much on under there", the court had been told by the complainant, who went home to England sometime after the incidents but had to return to New Zealand to give evidence in the trial.
Judge Mackintosh accepted Willis had been a respected member of his community, and had had only one previous offence, of drink-driving.
The offence was too serious for a fine, she said in imposing the community work sentence, and ordering Willis to pay $997.72 for losses caused to the complainant, but no other reparation was sought.
