Northland man jailed for five years on sex charges maintains his innocence

A judge has slashed the youth discount a man might have got at sentencing because his continued denial of his offending negates the greater prospects youths have for rehabilitation.

A man who raped a vulnerable young woman, whose family entrusted him in their home, showing him the love and support he lacked, continues to deny the offending.

The 21-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was this week jailed for five years after a jury in Kaikohe District Court earlier this year found him guilty of sexual violation by rape and five counts of indecent assault.

Sentencing him in Whangārei District Court this week, Judge Philip Rzepecky accepted Crown submissions the man's failure to take responsibility for his offending meant he could not get the full benefit of a youth discount to which he might otherwise be entitled.

The discount recognises that long prison terms are particularly crushing for young people and that young people have greater prospects of rehabilitation.

The judge summarised the offending in line with the complainant's evidence on which the Crown case relied and which the jury accepted.

The indecent assaults happened when the man, then 18, and the complainant, who was 17, were together at her house one evening in March 2019.

The pair shared some cannabis, after which the man told the woman she owed him.

Each of the assaults involved him pushing her against a wall, reaching under her clothes and touching her breasts and genitals. During one incident, he pushed her head down towards his crotch. She was shocked and frozen, the woman said, but managed to get free and did not tell anyone.

On another evening, the man was drinking with her brother when he came into her room where she was dozing in bed, pinned her down, and raped her. The incident lasted about five minutes and again left her frozen in shock, the woman said. She could not do or say anything even though her family were home.

Judge Rzepecky set a starting point of six years' imprisonment for the rape offence. He applied 18 months' uplift for the indecent assaults.

Defence counsel Hugh Leabourn argued for a youth discount of 20 per cent but the judge limited it to 10 per cent, accepting Crown prosecutor Richard Annandale's submissions about the question mark over the man's prospect of rehabilitation.

Leabourn said there should be 20 per cent discount for background factors covered by a cultural report.

It recorded the man's transient upbringing, his exposure to violence between his parents, heavy drug use by them, and his own early drug use. He was also exposed to a gang lifestyle, where those things were normalised.

It was almost inevitable that without earlier good role modelling from his parents, the man had grown up without knowing about moral boundaries in interpersonal relationships, Leabourn said.

It was an anomaly that despite the man's dreadful upbringing, he regularly attended school, achieved NCEA level 3 and had not come to police attention. It was not until after leaving school when he earned money that his cannabis use and drinking increased and he got into this trouble, Leabourn said.

The judge accepted the report was sad reading and showed a hard life. A discount of 15 per cent could be given for those underlying factors but he agreed with Annandale there was no causal link between the man's upbringing and his offending, the judge said.

This was offending against a vulnerable young woman, whose family had entrusted him in their home and shown him the love and support he lacked within his own, he said.

Leabourn sought further discount for time the man had spent in custody.

Annandale argued that was on charges relating to another complainant of which the man was acquitted at trial. Defendants could not claw discount for time spent in custody on one proceeding to another, Annandale said.

Leabourn said the man should have been charged for this offending while he was in custody for the other charges. Instead, police took six months to lay charges. The man should not have to suffer because of police inaction, Leabourn said.

Judge Rzepecky did not directly address this argument but gave a further 5 per cent discount for the man's time on restrictive bail, otherwise good character, and willingness to attend some programmes.