A grandmother would leave a window open so her granddaughter's abuser could come in.
Warning: This story deals with details of sexual offending against a child and may be distressing.
A man in his early 20s had a four-month “intimate relationship” with a pre-teen girl, while her grandmother did nothing to stop it.
The grandmother, who had custody of the girl in a Waikato town, arranged for the girl’s window to be left open so the man could get in.
When another family member got wind of what seemed to be going on and called to confront her, the grandmother told her it was “none of her business”.
Now, both the man and grandmother have been sentenced in the Tauranga District Court for their roles related to the sexual abuse of the girl.
According to the Crown summary of facts, the man would climb on top of a chair outside the bedroom before climbing in the open window.
At one point during the relationship, the girl had been unwell and was taken to hospital; both the man and the grandmother accompanied her.
The hospital made a note that the man was the girl’s “partner”.
Later that month, text messages showed the girl had texted her grandmother asking if her “bf” could borrow money and asking her to “open my window for my bf”.
The grandmother replied that it was already open, followed by, “since when do you close it”.
When the police visited the grandmother, she said she did not think her granddaughter was in an “intimate relationship with anyone”, nor had she been in one previously, and that she had never seen her granddaughter with the defendant.
She told police she wouldn’t support her granddaughter being in a relationship until she was 16.
The man faced a charge of meeting a young person after grooming, which related to messages sent over the four months the pair were in an intimate relationship.
He would use phrases such as “I love you” and “you are beautiful” and would frequently tell the pre-teen girl he wanted her “cuddles and kisses”.
He told her: “You’re the first person I’ve fallen in love with in so f***en long” and “I’m pretty keen to stroll over tonight and come and get my kisses and cuddles beautiful”.
He would message her, asking her to open her window.
A month after the messaging began, he told her he didn’t want to go to a 21st, because he would rather be “cuddled up” with her.
She told him to come and cuddle and about 20 minutes later, he messaged to say he was coming over.
The next month, she told him she was taking a pregnancy test, suspecting she was pregnant, but the following month, the girl said she suspected she had “miscarried”.
The summary also details a sexual encounter that the girl had filmed and messages about sexual acts, including references by the man to having rough sex and oral sex with the girl.
Both defendants had earlier been given sentence indications by Judge William Lawson.
The man, who is in his early 20s, was charged with meeting a young person following grooming, and two charges of sexual connection with a young person.
The summary of facts states the pair were “in an intimate relationship” over a four month period.
He also had charges related to the possession of firearms and ammunition.
Judge Lawson gave an indication of three-and-a-half years’ imprisonment for the sexual offending, with an uplift of 12 months for the firearms and ammunition charges, to reach an overall starting point of four-and-a-half years’ imprisonment.
The man was given a 20% discount for his guilty plea.
The man’s lawyer, Racheal Raukawa, also sought a 20% discount for the man’s youth and personal circumstances, including the man’s neurological conditions.
Judge Lawson said there wasn’t clear evidence that the man had a mental age lower than his actual age.
“There is medical material which is the result of an EEG [electroencephalogram] examination, which suggests that there was a mildly abnormal EEG, but it’s not clear from the material that I have seen exactly what that means,” Judge Lawson said.
Raukawa said a second EEG was needed, but there hadn’t been enough time to have that done, nor to get expert evidence on the results of the first.
Judge Lawson noted the man had achieved his Level 3 qualifications and had maintained employment.
“So it’s clear that you have the intellectual capacity to understand the nature and seriousness of the offending,” Judge Lawson told the man.
However, the man’s mother had provided material that said her son was “limited intellectually”.
“She says that, in her view, the position is that you have always been very young for your age, and then she points to the EEG result as being indicative of that.”
Crown prosecutor Laurie McMaster said the offending didn’t have the hallmarks of youthful impulsivity and also highlighted comments the man made to a pre-sentence report writer, in which he said it was a shame the relationship had ended, because it was the best he’d had.
“Even after this matter progressing through the court system, the reality of it hasn’t quite dawned on him yet,” McMaster said.
“However, he obviously does have some support from his family and from a letter from his mother, he does seem to have some prospects at getting meaningful employment if he chooses to turn his back on his criminal offending.”
The judge decided to give a 5% discount for the man’s youth, with his age falling on the cusp of where a discount for this can be given.
He gave the man an additional 3% for his neurological issues, as well as a 7% discount for abuse and neglect he had suffered in his childhood.
Raukawa provided information about the courses the man had done, as evidence of his prospects of rehabilitation.
“You’re not someone who has sat and done nothing,” Judge Lawson said, and gave him a 5% discount for rehabilitative prospects.
He was also given a four-and-a-half month discount for the time he spent on restrictive bail.
That resulted in an end sentence of 28 months’ imprisonment.
The girl’s grandmother faced charges that related to her failing to protect her granddaughter and making a false statement to the police.
She was given a 35% discount for her plea and some other related matters.
While there had been some concerning factors, including the false statement, the judge said a letter the woman had written led him to conclude she was genuinely remorseful, and he gave her a 5% discount for remorse.
Her lawyer, Scott Mills, also provided material from another family member that suggested she had been a “very good mother over the lion’s share of her life”.
However, the judge said Mills was essentially arguing for a good-character discount, which wasn’t available to the woman because of her previous convictions, which included things such as cultivation of cannabis, excess breath alcohol, resisting police and disorderly behaviour.
“It may be that you were a good mother to your other children, but you certainly let this victim down,” Judge Lawson said.
The woman was given a 40% discount overall, which resulted in an end sentence of 21 months’ imprisonment.
The Crown did not oppose that being commuted to a sentence of home detention, and the judge considered that, given the offending was “factually specific”, she did not pose a risk to the wider public.
She was sentenced to 10 months’ home detention.
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.