A High Court judge has criticised adult family members who turned a blind eye to a man's years of sex offending against youngsters.
Justice Rod Hansen made his comments as he sentenced the 56-year-old Mangere Bridge man to six years jail for indecent assaults on 12 girls.
The man - who cannotbe named to avoid identifying his victims, most of whom were related to him - pleaded guilty to 23 charges of indecent assault.
In the High Court at Auckland yesterday, Crown prosecutor Debra Bell said that of the 23 counts, 21 were for indecent assaults on 10 girls under the age of 12. Six of the girls were under the age of 7.
The man's offending stretched back to when he was 23 and involved nieces, sisters-in-law, and daughters of family friends.
Justice Hansen said that a disturbing feature of the case was that the offending was known about and tolerated by some adult members of the man's family.
Many of the offences were of a historic nature.
Justice Hansen said the man was entitled to be sentenced as if he had been charged at the time for historic offending. He added that sentences for sexual offending had increased significantly over the past decade.
The man, who has previous convictions for indecently assaulting two other children, pleaded guilty in the Manukau District Court, which declined jurisdiction on the grounds that he might be eligible for preventive detention.
Debra Bell said that the man, with a total of 25 convictions involving 14 complainants, had a proclivity for offending against young children.
The offender was not deterred by the presence of other adults in the house, she said, nor of children in the same room.
She described his conduct as predatory, but also opportunistic.
In some cases, said Debra Bell, the offending lasted only a couple of minutes. But two cases covered more than seven years.
She said the man told the probation officer that he had feelings of power and excitement while offending, and he did it because he got away with it.
