KEY POINTS:
A woman has been jailed for eight years for taking part in the rapes of her 13-year-old daughter.
The girl was raped by a man known to be HIV-infected. The girl's father and another man are also in jail for violating the child.
In the Napier District Court
yesterday, Judge Geoff Rea took the unusual step of warning the court details were so grave people should leave if they thought they could not cope.
None took his invitation to avoid the horror, and there were no outbursts as he unfolded the details.
Judge Rea said neither he nor the prosecution and defence counsels had found anything comparable in legal history to use as a guide to the length of sentence for the woman, who had no previous convictions.
She pleaded guilty to four charges of being a party to rape, and one of sexual violation relating to acts committed by the man, and charges of herself violating the girl, along with indecent assault, doing an indecent act and inducing an indecent act, relating to offences she also committed with the girl.
She had agreed to give evidence against him at his trial, the woman's counsel, Richard Stone, said.
Crown prosecutor Jo Rielly sought a 15-year "starting point" for the sentence and the judge said compliance with the Crown was the only mitigation for the woman.
Relating the summary of facts, which had been accepted by the 38-year-old woman, Judge Rea said rapes took place on four separate dates last year - on three occasions in a motel and once in the woman's home, after the girl was taken from her grandparents' home.
Aware the man had tested HIV-positive, the woman watched the rapes, while smoking cannabis and drinking bourbon and coke, joined in when instructed to do so by the man, and performed sexual acts on her daughter.
The girl was also made to drink and smoke.
On one occasion the woman slapped her daughter when the girl said she hadn't enjoyed what the man had done. After another time the woman and the man took the girl to a doctor, waiting outside as the girl went in alone with a story the adults had made up about why she should be prescribed the morning-after pill.
When interviewed by the police, the woman expressed disgust at her role, believing she had prostituted her daughter.
She offered no explanation as to why she not protected her daughter, but said that the man, from Auckland, had been "nice" to her, that he had bought her loads of firewood and put money into her bank account.
Judge Rea said the woman, who had herself been sexually abused as a child, had shown a "complete lack of moral strength" to stand up against predatory men who were more depraved than herself.
- HAWKE'S BAY TODAY
