“I could not outrun what you left in me.”
The woman was giving a victim impact statement in Alexandra District Court this week, where her former boyfriend was sentenced to 12 months supervision for taking intimate visual recordings and images of her.
The pair, who both have name suppression, were in a year-long relationship from 2024 to November 2025.
The relationship ended when the woman was going through the man’s phone and found two images and a video of herself while she was sleeping.
The images and video showed her pyjama bottoms moved to one side exposing her genitals and another showing her breast exposed. She was unaware the images had been taken and did not consent.
When she confronted the 20-year-old he gave no explanation. She involved the police, who executed a search warrant of his phone in December 2025 and found the content.
In her victim impact statement, the woman said her then-boyfriend controlled every aspect of her life “so suddenly”.
“Sex was constant and expected, every day, sometimes multiple times a day,” she said.
“If I said no, you threatened suicide.”
She said he knew about previous sexual abuse she had endured, yet he still treated her like that.
“You turned intimacy into something I endured to survive.”
She said she’d caught two sexually transmitted diseases from the man during their relationship.
“It is a quiet shame that follows me into rooms.”
The woman said she no longer felt safe when she was meant to be sleeping and at times was unable to sleep in the dark.
The woman said the trauma and control in the relationship made her attempt to take her own life, but she was no longer letting him control her.
“I am proud I chose to live when you told me I did not matter.
“You brought me to the edge of nothing. And still I remain. Still growing, still reaching, still choosing to exist.
“You hurt me but you do not get to keep me.”
The man was 19 at the time of offending and his defence counsel said men under 25 often have frontal lobe development still ongoing, which leads to poor decision-making.
The Crown prosecutor refuted this, saying this was more than poor decision-making.
Judge Emma Parsons said the man was willing to take part in restorative justice but the woman did not want to. She also would not accept a $500 offer of emotional harm reparation.
“The victim was entitled to feel she could trust you,” Judge Parsons said.
Parsons sentenced the man to 12 months supervision with special conditions, including to attend a programme which will be organised by a probation officer and not contact the victim.
Brianna McIlraith is a Queenstown-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the lower South Island. She has been a journalist since 2018 and has had a strong interest in business and financial journalism.
