The woman challenged her conviction, saying she wanted to become a teacher. Photo / 123RF
An 18-year-old woman who had a months-long sexual relationship with a 12-year-old relative, “akin to that of aunt and nephew”, wanted her conviction thrown out because she intended to become a teacher.
The boy had attended a youth programme where his relative was a senior student and youth leader.
After pleading guilty to two representative charges of sexual connection with a young person, the woman was sentenced to eight and a half months’ home detention with post-detention conditions for six months.
However, because she aspired to be an educator and was worried about the effect a conviction would likely have on her aspirations, she challenged it.
Now the Supreme Court has dismissed her appeal, agreeing with the Court of Appeal that her offending was serious, having taken place over four months and extended repeatedly to sexual intercourse.
The Court of Appeal had considered the family relationship and that her presence in the boy’s life meant there was a significant breach of trust.
The court also described the age difference as “profound” in terms of maturity and vulnerability.
In terms of the gravity of the offending, the court referred to the victim impact statement, which expressed, among other matters, the harm to the boy, the recently released judgment said.
The woman originally sought, and was denied, a discharge without conviction in the district court.
She took her case to the Court of Appeal to challenge the decision to refuse a discharge without conviction, but the appeal was dismissed.
In seeking an appeal through the Supreme Court, she submitted that her case raised issues of general and public importance.
Those issues included the extent to which “youth mitigates the gravity of the offending and whether youth magnifies the consequences of conviction”.
She wanted to argue the court was wrong to find the gravity of her offending was moderately serious, and wrong not to find that the seriousness of the offending was further reduced by her “very young age”, according to the judgment.
She submitted that insufficient weight was given to the consequences of a conviction for her.
She also argued an appeal would raise a question about the exercise of police discretion about disclosure of offending, in the context of vetting where a discharge without conviction had been granted for that offending.
Supreme Court judges Dame Ellen France, Sir Joe Williams and Sir Stephen Kos, in assessing the submissions, said in reaching the view it was moderately serious offending that the court noted the offending itself was “serious, having taken place repeatedly over a period of four months and extended repeatedly to full sexual intercourse”.
The Court of Appeal had agreed with the district court assessment of the likely consequences for the applicant of the entry of conviction.
The district court judge had noted that sexual offending against a child who attended a youth programme where the woman was a senior student would “unsurprisingly affect aspirations to teach in environments where children are pupils”.
The Supreme Court judges didn’t consider that the proposed appeal would raise questions of general or public importance or was an appropriate vehicle for consideration of the scope of police discretion in the context of vetting.
“There were features personal to the applicant which warranted careful attention in sentencing,” the judgment said.
“But the judge, in sentencing, recognised those in the significant discount given for her guilty pleas, youth, remorse and rehabilitative efforts (she had attended a Safe programme), as well as other personal factors.”
Further, in commuting what would have been an end sentence of 17 months’ imprisonment to home detention, the district court recognised her “young age, lack of previous convictions, rehabilitation efforts, remorse and future prospects”, the judgment said.
“The matters the applicant wishes to raise were fully considered by both the sentencing judge and the Court of Appeal.
“Nothing raised by the applicant suggests any appearance of a miscarriage of justice in the way the courts below dealt with her case.”
Al Williams is an Open Justice reporter for the New Zealand Herald, based in Christchurch. He has worked in daily and community titles in New Zealand and overseas for the past 16 years. Most recently, he was editor of the Hauraki-Coromandel Post, based in Whangamatā. He was previously deputy editor of the Cook Islands News.