Joshua Van Loon has been sentenced to home detention after the now-35-year-old indecently assaulted young female staff members at his cafe. Composite photo
Warning: This story deals with details of sexual assault and may be distressing.
A “touchy-feely” Katikati cafe owner had a “deliberate pattern of behaviour towards young and vulnerable females” he employed.
Joshua Van Loon would grab their shoulders, hips and buttocks, and also made inappropriate comments, including messaging one teen after a work party saying he felt “Rapey af”.
Now the 35-year-old has been sentenced, with a judge telling him his behaviour went “beyond flirtatious or tactile” and he must have known it was “inappropriate”.
Van Loon faced 31 charges related to eight female staff members.
He was found guilty by a judge on 12 charges of indecent assault and two charges of indecent assault on a young person, and was sentenced in the Tauranga District Court earlier this week.
He went on to have a consensual sexual relationship with the first victim.
He had faced 12 charges related to that victim, including sexual connection with a young person, but was acquitted on all but one charge as the judge couldn’t be sure whether she was 15, or 16, at the time of the majority of the alleged offending.
The charge of indecent assault on a young person, which the judge decided had been proved, happened when she was first employed.
It involved the repeated placing of his hands on her hips, and amounted to indecency given her age, that he was her employer, and the touching was unnecessary.
“[She] was targeted by Mr Van Loon who was hoping to develop a sexual relationship with [her],” Judge Paul Geoghegan said.
The touching later progressed to more sexual contact, with the pair exchanging nude images, explicit messages, and other sexual acts.
Van Loon’s behaviour towards the young females was noticed by older female employees, one of whom described him as too “touchy-feely” with the younger staff.
He would hug them from behind, hold their hips to move them aside, and in one instance, his hand slipped below the waistband of a girl’s tights.
He said this was accidental, but the judge didn’t accept that explanation.
The judge said, in a written decision, it was “completely unlikely it could have been anything other than deliberate”.
One of the victims, who was in her late teens, said Van Loon would touch her shoulders and lower back.
The judge said, “Mr Van Loon took the opportunity to stand behind [her] at times where her hands were caked with food and she would be unable to easily move to avoid him.
“I am satisfied that the evidence establishes that this was done with the clear intent to make physical contact with a vulnerable employee in circumstances which made that contact indecent.”
The teen also received inappropriate text messages from him after a work party.
He told her, after she said she was a “light weight” when it came to alcohol, this made her a “perfect target”, to which she replied, “Oh God”.
He went on to say he felt “terrible”, and she asked him if he’d had too much to drink.
“Something like that. Rapey af”, he replied.
In his evidence, he said he wasn’t sure what he had meant by her being a “perfect target” and that “rapey af” is slang for “horny as f***”.
The judge wasn’t convinced.
“I am of the view that he knew perfectly well what [the messages] meant.”
The judge considered there was an aspect of “grooming behaviour” in the messaging.
Another of the victims also complained about comments made – Van Loon told her that a tight T-shirt she’d worn to work made her “t**s look big”.
She told Van Loon’s then-wife, who apologised and said her husband had “crossed a line”.
“He thinks he’s being funny and he’s not,” she said.
Van Loon apologised, but the girl said on a later occasion he had grabbed her waist and brushed her bottom with his arm.
Initially she thought it was accidental, but after a while formed the view the contact was more sinister than that.
The judge was satisfied Van Loon knew the behaviour was indecent, particularly given he had already apologised for “earlier inappropriate behaviour”, and had been told by the girl she didn’t want it to happen again.
Some of the victims were also subjected to kisses on the neck, rubbing up and down on their hips, and sliding hands down to their buttocks.
Many of the charges were representative, meaning the touching happened more than once.
While all the victims had conceded they understood there may be times, when working in a cafe, that physical contact was necessary or unavoidable, they had all become uncomfortable about the touching that was occurring.
“It was too frequent, it was unnecessary. There was no justifiable reason for the contact to occur. Their instincts were correct. Their discomfort was justified,” the judge said.
He also noted his conduct towards the young female staffers stood in “stark contrast” to his behaviour towards older female employees, whom he never touched.
There was a “deliberate pattern” of targeting young females who were the least likely to complain or have the necessary confidence to resist, he said.
At sentencing, the judge was concerned about comments Van Loon had made to a pre-sentence report writer where he described himself as “naturally flirtatious” and “a tactile person”, a “hugger” and said he felt he “[connected] better with young people”.
The judge said his behaviour went “beyond flirtatious or tactile” and Van Loon, as an employer, “must have been aware this conduct was inappropriate”.
The report writer had noted that while Van Loon had some remorse, he did not fully grasp the seriousness of his actions.
The victims had all suffered a loss of trust, and this had impacted their ability to move on to new employment.
“It took a lot of courage for the victims of your offending to come to court and give evidence, and I commend them for that,” the judge said.
Judge Geoghegan adopted a starting point of two years’ imprisonment.
Van Loon was given a 5% discount for previous good character, as he only had two previous convictions, from some time ago, for minor offending.
He received an end sentence of 22 months’ imprisonment, which was commuted to 11 months’ home detention.
The judge did not order emotional harm reparation, as given Van Loon’s limited means, he would not be able to pay a sum that was anything other than “insulting” to the victims.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.