Police say rapist's career nipped in the bud

By Tony Wall

Good luck and good detective work enabled police to catch a child rapist they say could have become the next Joseph Thompson or Malcolm Rewa.

After a five-day trial, a jury in the Otahuhu District Court on Wednesday found Michael William John Kahia guilty of 10 charges, including rape, indecent assault and aggravated assault. One of his rape victims was just 11 years old.

Kahia, a 38-year-old Manurewa storeman, will be sentenced next month.
Police were yesterday celebrating the conviction of a man they described as a dangerous marauder.

Detective Constable John Read said police felt they had nipped the career of a serial rapist in the bud.

"He was definitely a dangerous man ... now that he has been convicted there is a feeling that a lot of families and a lot of young women are a lot safer."

Kahia, who grew up in Whangarei and split his time between there and Manurewa, first struck on November 9, 1997, when he crept into the bedroom of a 15-year-old Manurewa girl and began rubbing her thighs with a knife.

Kahia fled when the girl woke. The Cashflow card he had stolen from his victim's mother's handbag would eventually prove his downfall.

On December 18, 1997, Kahia broke into another Manurewa home and raped an 11-year-old girl in her bed. Confronted by the girl's father as he was leaving, he slashed the man's stomach with the knife.

The victim's mother said of her encounter with her daughter's rapist: "He was ruthless, it was like it didn't bother him at all - he's probably the Devil himself."

On January 25, 1998, a day before he was arrested, Kahia raped a 21-year-old woman at a party while she slept.

South Auckland police had set up a serial intruder investigation after linking the two Manurewa attacks, and had almost exhausted inquiries. "We were at the stage where we were ... grasping at straws and thought we would go back and double-check everything," said the inquiry head, Detective Sergeant Dave Glossop.

Questioning the mother of the first victim one final time, police discovered her Cashflow card had been missing since the attack.

Inquiries through the bank found the card had been used the same night the intruder struck, and a search through surveillance footage showed Kahia's de facto wife using the card.

Kahia's lawyer, Peter Kaye, said yesterday that his client denied any sexual element to the first incident, said he was not involved in the rape of the 11-year-old and believed the 21-year-old Whangarei victim was lying.

Pictured: Michael Kahia.