A victim of family violence says the discovery of intimate images taken without her knowledge was worse than the other abuse she suffered. Photo / 123RF
WARNING: This story discusses family violence and may be distressing for some readers.
A woman says her former husband’s need for control of her was so great that at times she was forced to send him photos proving where she was.
At other times, she feared for her life and knew the consequences of not complying with his requests.
She said the discovery he had hidden cameras in the house, and that she had been recorded naked, was “horrific”.
The trauma associated with this was “far greater” than the assaults and abuse, she said.
“I don’t want to see him or hear his voice ever again,” the woman said in a victim impact statement, read on her behalf in the Nelson District Court last week.
Her son described how his former stepfather was, at times, a decent guy, but “became a monster” when he drank alcohol.
At the hearing, the 46-year-old man, who has name suppression, sought a discharge without conviction on a list of charges including twice making an intimate visual recording, three charges of assault on a person in a family relationship and five charges of breaching a protection order.
The Crown opposed the application, with prosecutor Abigail Goodison saying it was difficult to discern a clear pathway forward in terms of rehabilitation.
She said there seemed to be a “watering down” of the understanding of the harm caused.
Defence lawyer Tony Bamford said a conviction would restrict his work. He said the defendant recognised that the offending would not have occurred if he had not drunk alcohol.
The defendant hung his head and clasped his face when the application was declined. Judge Bill Hastings said the offending was “serious and persistent”.
He instead sentenced the man to 12 months of home detention with strict conditions, commuted from a two-year prison term.
The judge said the defendant had shown disdain and contempt for his ex-wife and her son. His offending included that he had pressured her, unsuccessfully, into dropping the charges against him, which was close to perverting the course of justice.
The defendant’s possession of the intimate images came to light after the woman ended the relationship, despite the pair having been on-and-off when a protection order was in place.
“I knew the consequences if I didn’t comply,” the woman said.
Circumstances linked to her job made it difficult to get away.
“I kept going because I had a job to do, a child to support and rent to pay.”
She said the abuse had had a profound effect on her son, who had not only been a direct victim of the violence but had felt the need to protect her.
The court heard that the pair had been in a relationship for 11 years and were married for nine.
In February 2020, a final protection order was issued against the defendant in the North Island town where the family lived at the time.
By March the following year, the three were together at home, where the defendant had been drinking to celebrate an achievement at work.
He became intoxicated and then agitated, and began insulting and abusing the woman and her son.
The son fought back, at which point his mother tried to intervene but was hit in the head by the defendant.
Both victims left and called the police. The defendant was arrested and subsequently charged with assault and breaches of a protection order.
The couple separated, but then recommenced their relationship.
The summary of facts showed that between April and October 2021, the defendant had a bail condition that allowed limited contact with his former wife to discuss specific matters in their lives at the time.
The defendant then pressured the victim to “drop the charges” and sought unsuccessfully to have the protection order discharged.
In January 2022, the defendant sent the woman a string of text messages one morning, verbally abusing and threatening her. He then tried phoning her 29 times throughout the day.
He later told police there was no threat in his messages. His position was that he had bought her a car and was aggrieved that she intended to leave the relationship soon afterwards.
During a search, the police seized several of the defendant’s electronic devices.
It was then that the saved intimate recordings were found, plus screenshots of the recordings taken during a video call.
Many showed the victim in the bathroom getting changed after a shower. Others showed her getting dressed in what had been the couple’s bedroom.
Judge Hastings said while the woman might have consented to being on the video call, she had not given permission to being recorded.
Police also found videos from a small camera the defendant had installed in the bedroom of their former home, before they moved to Nelson.
She said it was devastating to have to sit with police and give evidence while watching private footage of herself she never knew existed.
From a prison starting point of 34 months, the defendant was given a 30% discount, resulting in an end sentence of two years’ imprisonment.
The credit was for his eventual guilty pleas, which came within a week of a scheduled jury trial, for counselling programmes he had undertaken, plus the contents of a psychologist’s report.
Judge Hastings said while a pre-sentence report recommending community detention and supervision did not adequately reflect the offender’s culpability, he was content to convert the sentence to home detention, with a list of special and post-release conditions.
He was also ordered to pay each victim $1000 in emotional harm reparation and an order was made for the defendant’s electronic devices to be factory reset, to avoid any possible dissemination of the images.
Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.