Uncle who raped his niece in Mount Maunganui motel sentenced in Tauranga District Court

A man and his niece were staying at a motel at Mount Maunganui when he took her out drinking and then raped her.

Warning: This story includes details of sexual abuse and may be distressing.

A woman in her 20s woke to find her uncle, a man she thought of “as a father”, violating her in a motel room.

The sexual assault then turned into rape and as she fled into the bathroom her uncle, who is in his late 50s, called after her: “You want this, come on you’ve been teasing me, come back in, it’ll be fine”.

She yelled at him to get off her bed and only came out once he had retreated to his bedroom.

The man had been living in Australia and was back in New Zealand to visit family at the time of the offending, late last year.

Today, he was sentenced on charges of rape, sexual violation, and indecent assault in the Tauranga District Court.

The court heard that he, his daughter, and his niece had all been staying at a motel in Mount Maunganui.

The two young women planned to share a foldout couch in the lounge, and the man was to sleep in the bedroom.

After checking in, the man’s daughter was picked up by her partner, leaving him and his niece behind.

The uncle and niece went to a couple of bars at Mount Maunganui and, after four cocktails, the niece felt unwell so they returned to the motel.

She was asleep by 10pm but later woke to find her uncle performing oral sex on her. He had removed her underwear.

The woman turned away and lay on her side, at which point the uncle used his hand to violate her before he then began to rape her.

At this point, she got out of bed and ran to the bathroom.

In her victim impact statement, read by Crown Prosecutor Sunny Teki-Clark, she said that before the offending she trusted her uncle to look out for her and keep her safe.

“What he has done to me has scarred me for life,” she wrote.

“My days now are far from normal. I panic when around men.”

She said a “feeling of shame and worthlessness consumes [her]”, and her uncle had preyed upon her kindness.”

“I ask myself every day ‘why?’; why me and my little sister?”

She said the fact he said he had no remorse disgusted her, and she didn’t think she would ever be the same.

A further sexual assault

The man went on to sexually assault his younger niece, the sister of the first victim, just over a month after the motel violation.

He was staying at his brother’s house in a small Bay of Plenty town and, according to the summary of facts, the second niece, who was 16, had been sharing a room with him and her 5-year-old nephew.

She and the 5-year-old were in a single bed, and the uncle was in another.

During the night, she awoke to find his hand down her unbuttoned jean shorts, touching her genitalia.

She rolled over to get away, hugging her nephew, but her uncle pushed his hands into her shorts and under her underwear, from behind.

A few moments later, he withdrew his hand and went back to his own bed.

In her victim impact statement, also read by Teki-Clark, she said the morning after being sexually assaulted she felt a sense of “helplessness, shame, and anxiety”.

“The man I trusted and loved violated my trust by touching me inappropriately while he thought I was asleep.”

Since then she’d had panic attacks which made it hard for her to breathe, “horrific nightmares”, and she’d even hurt herself because “the thoughts made me feel disgusting”.

She harboured deep resentment towards him, especially as her young nephew had been in the same bed when the offending happened.

Difficulties in custody

The man pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, one of rape, and three of indecent assault following a sentence indication by Judge Bill Lawson.

Judge Lawson said the man should have been someone his nieces could trust, and he took advantage of that trust.

However, he noted the man’s willingness to undertake rehabilitation treatments and appropriate programmes.

Defence lawyer Martin Hine asked for a discount for previous good character as up until this offending the man had lived a “blameless” life.

However, Judge Bill Lawson noted it wasn’t a case where the man had a completely clear record, as there were some driving convictions from the 1990s.

The judge decided a “modest” discount was appropriate though.

Hine also asked the judge to consider aspects of a pre-sentence report that indicated the man was experiencing difficulties with anxiety while in custody, being reluctant to even leave his cell.

However, the pre-sentence report also made it clear things would change once the man was sentenced and removed from the remand facility.

Taking into account the man’s anxiety, which would make serving the sentence more challenging for him, as well as his previous good character and prospects for rehabilitation, the judge gave an overall discount of 10%.

He also gave him a 20% discount for his guilty plea, as the man’s acceptance of the charges had meant the victims did not have to give evidence in a trial setting.

The man was sentenced to five years and seven months’ imprisonment.

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.