One of the victims of a Northland child sex offender says the morning after his abuser pleaded guilty was the first time in 40 years he had woken up feeling free.
Raymond George Melrose, 68, of Paihia, was jailed for two years and eight months yesterday for the abuse of
two Auckland brothers in the 1960s and 70s. One was aged between 11 and 16 at the time, the other aged 9 to 12. Melrose was the principal of Kaikohe Christian School from 1997 until 2012, well after the abuse occurred.
He pleaded guilty on August 31, the day his trial was due to begin, after the most serious charges were dropped. The brothers eyeballed Melrose across the Kaikohe District Court yesterday as their harrowing victim impact statements were read aloud.
The older brother yesterday recounted his intense grooming by Melrose and a teenage life which had been lost and could never be recovered. He said he has had three failed marriages because "I never felt good enough ... and always felt dirty because of what he did to me".
He still struggled to trust men who tried to befriend him and could not wait in queues because he couldn't bear anyone standing close behind him. It distressed him that he had been unable to protect his younger brother from the same fate. Their mother, too, had endured years of shame and hurt.
