Tauranga man Hayden Condon imprisoned for child rape

Hayden Mark Condon has been sentenced to nine years and six months' imprisonment for sexually violating a primary-school aged girl, who says he "took away her childhood".

Warning: This story contains evidence of a sexual nature which some readers may find upsetting.

A young woman who was twice raped by the same man as a child has described the ongoing trauma from her ordeal saying she continues to feel “gross and dirty” and has vivid nightmares of the attack happening “over and over”.

The young woman, who has statutory name suppression, was in primary school when she was raped by Tauranga man Hayden Mark Condon.

This week, in a victim impact statement read out in the Tauranga District Court, she said the 38-year-old “took away my childhood and my confidence”.

She said she struggled with self-harm after the offending began, and had developed an eating disorder, making herself sick after eating.

She pushed away school friends, becoming isolated, and continues to have sleep disorders, needing medication to help her fall asleep and suffering recurring nightmares when she does sleep.

Condon, whose name has now been entered into the Child Sex Offenders Register, was imprisoned for nine years and six months on six charges related to the sexual offending.

The court summary of facts said the girl had awoken to find Condon on top of her, raping her, before she eventually blacked out. The following morning she was in significant pain, with physical symptoms and evidence of the violation.

The second rape happened several years later when she was asleep on a mattress on the floor of a room. . She again woke to him on top of her before she panicked about “it happening again”, and fell back to sleep overwhelmed.

In the morning she found her shorts were on back-to-front, and she again had physical symptoms of rape.

The two charges of rape were accompanied by a further four charges - two of an indecent act on a child and another two of an indecent act on a young person.

Two were representative charges - meaning they covered indecent behaviour that had been recurring, and not specific occasions the victim could recall. This included Condon unbuttoning the girl’s clothing to touch her breasts, and touching her bottom while hugging her.

The summary of facts said the offending occurred against a wider background of inappropriate behaviour that included Condon sitting the girl on his lap and bouncing her, including after he’d been watching pornography.

He’d taken an interest in and asked personal questions about her physical development, and would repeatedly touch her, including on her thighs.

Actions left family “crippled”

During sentencing, the girl’s mother shared her own distress at Condon’s actions, saying she was angry at him for destroying “innocent people... for your own sick gain”.

“You have shown me all that is evil and twisted in this world and I’ll never be able to let my guard down again,” she said.

The offending had taken a huge toll on her family and relationships, and even her income as she’d quit her job due to stress and anxiety.

“Your actions actually financially crippled us,” she said.

She said she feels “physically sick to [her] stomach” when she thinks about what he did.

The sentencing

Crown prosecutor Sunny Teki-Clark said a starting point of 12-13 years’ imprisonment was appropriate, largely due to the degree and number of aggravating factors.

They included the victim’s vulnerability, the breach of trust, and the harm to the victim.

He said there was evidence in the trial that the victim’s self-harm had begun at a “shockingly young age”.

There had been an element of planning and premeditation, and the offending had happened over a period of four years.

Condon’s lawyer Martin Hine said while there may have been a small amount of premeditation, the offending had been largely opportunistic.

He acknowledged the breach of trust and said the harm to the victim was implicit in the nature of the charges Condon had been convicted of.

Hine said Condon had faced “horrific” things growing up, involving bullying, and there was a high risk of Condon self-harming while serving a term of imprisonment.

Judge David Cameron agreed that much of the offending had been opportunistic but highlighted instances where Condon had taken proactive steps to be alone with the victim, indicating a degree of premeditation.

There had been regular offending over a lengthy period, and it had caused serious emotional harm, all of which were aggravating features, Judge Cameron said.

The judge adopted a starting point of 12 years, applying a 10% discount for previous good character and a further 10% for his background, which had included bullying throughout his life.

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.