Former Rotorua church leader Malcolm Hore has been jailed for sexual offences and harrassing his victim. Photo / NZME
Former Rotorua church leader Malcolm Hore has been jailed for sexual offences and harrassing his victim. Photo / NZME
He was a church leader who sexually abused a young woman. When she forced him to stop, he went on to stalk and criminally harass her for 18 months. Malcolm Hore has now been sent to jail. Kelly Makiha reports.
Warning: Distressing content
A former Rotorua church leader who sexuallyabused and then stalked a young woman has been jailed for four years and three months.
Malcolm Hore, 56, made his victim feel like a hostage in her own home, the Rotorua District Court was told on Friday.
Hore was found guilty last year of two charges of unlawful sexual connection, seven counts of indecent assault (including two representative charges) and one charge of criminal harassment.
Judge Tony Snell said Hore repeatedly sexually abused the woman for nearly a year.
The woman eventually told her husband what Hore had done and her husband confronted Hore and told him to leave them alone.
Judge Snell said that sparked Hore to "spin a web of lies" to discredit the woman to anyone he could to concoct a defence against his actions. He also began to harass the woman in a "stalkerish" and "obsessive" way for 18 months before he was finally arrested.
He would walk past her house sometimes twice a day and loiter near her home or work when she was due to leave or arrive. When she adjusted her timing to avoid him, he would change his timing to match.
The woman went to police twice and Hore was warned on both occasions to stay away but he continued.
Eventually, the woman felt so trapped, the couple decided to sell their home privately so he didn't know. They moved at a time he wasn't likely to see them leave and they tried to begin a new life.
Judge Snell said it wasn't long before Hore was seen biking in the area looking up and down driveways trying to find her. He eventually found her new home and bought a house near where she lived.
The sexual offending involved Hore touching the woman inappropriately on several occasions. At times he would manipulate situations to get her alone.
If she tried to make him stop, he told her his wife didn't fulfil him sexually and he said he was autistic and he could not live the way he was if he didn't have a physical connection.
He also told her he wanted to take his life. She felt frightened that if she persisted in telling him to stop, he would kill himself.
Former Rotorua church leader Malcolm Hore has been jailed for sexual offences and harrassing his victim. Photo / NZME
Despite what Judge Snell described as "overwhelming evidence" of Hore's guilt at his trial, he continued to deny he did anything wrong.
"You are not remorseful, you continue to victim blame, you are saddened by your own personal plight and you're not entitled to any discount for a plea."
Judge Snell raised his concerns about the actions of Hore's supporters.
"One of the concerns I have about many of your supporters is that they appear to victim blame as well, they do not accept your guilt, they do not accept the offending you have done and choose to ignorantly continue to harass and harangue the victim."
Hore's lawyer Andy Schulze asked for the judge to take into account Hore's Asperger's syndrome, saying his obsessive and repetitive behaviours were traits of people who suffered from his condition.
Judge Snell accepted this but said the harassment offending warranted an uplift in his sentence to 20-22 months - near the maximum penalty of 24 months.
Judge Snell acknowledged several letters of support that showed Hore had done good things at times in the community in his dealings with the church, and his role as a mentor and counsellor.
However, he said Hore had "fallen from grace significantly" because he was in a position of trust.
"You were trying to play with her mind and to get inside her head ... Your behaviour was quite simply reprehensible."
The woman's victim impact statement was read to the judge by Crown prosecutor Anna McConachy. In it, she said she felt like a hostage in her own home.
She said she had trusted Hore with her life but she was left to feel distant, numb and depressed.
She was upset she couldn't trust her body to react in the way she thought it should and she felt ashamed and dirty. She would shower constantly and scrub herself raw.
"We did everything we could, even selling our home and moving to the other side of town."
She said they came close to moving towns before realising that wasn't fair.
She said she got security cameras, locks on her doors and windows and would wake at every sound.
"My life became a nightmare that I just couldn't seem to wake up from."
Judge Snell said the strangest part of the case was Hore was completely responsible for his prosecution because he had been directly warned to back off not only by the woman and her husband but also the police.
The judge sentenced him on all charges to four years and three months' jail.
Judge Snell formerly recorded Hore should be watched closely in prison as he posed a suicide risk.
If it's an emergency and you feel that you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
If you've ever experienced sexual assault or abuse and need to talk to someone, contact Safe to Talk confidentially, any time 24/7:
