An adult woman who had a baby with her 14-year-old cousin has been sentenced for her crime more than 20 years after the fact.
The woman, who has name suppression to protect the identity of her victim, cried throughout her appearance in the Hutt Valley District Court on Friday.
While she sought to avoid a conviction for the historical offending, Judge Tony Couch said he saw “no reason” why she should be discharged for something that had caused “long-lasting harm” to the victim.
According to the summary of facts, the woman was about 21 when she started a sexual relationship with her young cousin and gave birth to their child in 2004. Their relationship continued for several years, when the victim was aged between 14 and 18.
“You were, at all times, aware of the victim’s age,” Judge Couch said.
The woman, now 43, has pleaded guilty to a representative charge of having an unlawful sexual connection with a child aged 12-16. She was charged more than two decades after the offending began.
Judge Couch said he had read the victim impact statement and that it was one of the most “fluent” of such types of statements he had read in 20 years on the job.
“There has been serious and long-lasting harm to the victim and to the wider family. This is vividly apparent from the victim’s victim impact statement,” he said.
“The child born as a result of this offending came into the world with major disadvantages, not only in terms of the psychological challenges that he has, but also being born the son of an adolescent who could not play a part in being a father to him in his early years.”
He said the victim was vulnerable at the time and had “little control” over his natural urges.
The woman’s lawyer, Zachary Smart, applied for a discharge without conviction, arguing the consequence of a conviction would be out of all proportion to the gravity of the offending.
He pointed to multiple suggested mitigating factors, including the woman’s youth at the time of the offending, her remorse, and her willingness to attend a restorative justice conference with the victim.
He also said her otherwise good character should be factored in.
Judge Couch disagreed, saying that while she had no other convictions, the offending itself spanned an “extended period of time”. He also placed only limited weight on the woman’s age and naivety at the time of the offending.
The woman had argued a conviction would disproportionately affect her because she might wish to return to work as a care worker in the future. But the judge noted that in such a career, she would have to undergo a full police vet, which would reveal her charges to prospective employers even if she had never been convicted of them.
He also said any humiliation and shame she faced from a conviction was a natural consequence of her crime.
The judge declined the discharge application, instead settling on a sentence of 10 months’ home detention.
The end sentence included discounts for the woman’s guilty plea, her remorse, youth, lack of previous convictions, and her own background and efforts at rehabilitation.
“I do not doubt that you yourself were the victim of entirely inappropriate exploitation as a young person; I do not see that in itself as a mitigating factor,” he said.
While he accepted her own early life experiences contributed to chronic difficulties she had in her adult life, he did not believe there was a clear connection between those and her offending.
Nevertheless, he said she should be commended for her attempts to rehabilitate.
The woman also applied for name suppression, saying she would suffer extreme hardship if her name were to be published. While Judge Couch accepted publication would impede her mental health improvement, he did not consider it would amount to extreme hardship.
The victim also shared his views with police that he did not want her to have suppression, believing she had taken no accountability nor shown any real remorse.
Judge Couch noted, however, that naming the woman would likely identify the victim, who has automatic name suppression both as the victim of sexual offending, as well as for being a child at the time it occurred. For that reason, he granted the woman permanent name suppression.
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 12 years.