Waikato man’s sexual relationship with daughter gravest breach of trust, says judge

The man, in his 50s, was jailed on charges of incest, assaulting a person in a family relationship and breaching his parole conditions when he appeared in the Hamilton District Court.

WARNING: This story details sexual harm and incest and may be upsetting.

A man had a year-long sexual relationship with his daughter that only stopped once the mother of the teen found out about it.

And even then, on Good Friday this year, the Waikato man - who has permanent name suppression to protect the identity of his 19-year-old daughter - punched his partner in the face when she confronted him.

The man, in his mid-50s, then hit the woman again, causing her to fall, and told her he would only stop hitting her if their daughter could leave with him.

The woman suffered a split lip, black eye and bloody nose.

The father appeared for sentencing in the Hamilton District Court today on charges of incest, assaulting a female and breaching his parole conditions.

The court heard the father and daughter had sex together for just over a year before the mother confronted her partner at Easter.

Crown prosecutor Rebecca Guthrie said although the man was ashamed of his conduct and took immediate responsibility for it, he still seemed to minimise or limit the extent of the offending.

He had been in and out of prison his whole life, so hadn’t lived with his daughter fulltime. However, the “breach [of trust] is of the highest order”.

He had recently been released from prison when the offending began.

The man’s lawyer, Roger Laybourn, disputed there was evidence of his client minimising what happened, and instead, the man pleaded guilty as soon as he appeared in court and profusely apologised to the victim for what happened.

Laybourn quoted a line from his client’s letter of remorse to the victims: “I took her love and used it for my own deprived need to be loved.”

Judge Brett Crowley said the man seemed to sum up his own offending by effectively saying he “took his daughter’s love and abused it”.

“When a father offends against his own daughter in this way, it is the gravest breach of trust the court will see.”

Another aggravating factor was the pre-meditation and extent of the offending.

“It was not one-off or short... he accepts it continued for over a year. He had an opportunity to come to his senses during that time but simply continued to abuse his daughter.”

The mother, in her victim statement, said the effect on their daughter won’t be known for some years, while their son would also be confused and disturbed about what happened for some time.

The man also had a prolific criminal history, stretching to about 15 pages long and including robbery, aggravated robbery and family violence, which had mostly continued unabated since the early 1980s.

Judge Crowley took an overall starting point of four years before handing down discounts for his early guilty plea and “deprived” upbringing.

He jailed the man for two years and four months.

Belinda Feek has been a reporter for 19 years, and at the Herald for eight years before joining the Open Justice team in 2022.