Obese rapist jailed to hospital
A morbidly obese man has been sentenced to prison for historic rape and sex abuse charges, but will spend it in hospital unless he loses weight.
Kaiko¯ ura man Marcus Shane Solomon appeared by audio visual link on a hospital gurney as he was sentenced to eight years and four months’ imprisonment in Blenheim yesterday.
Solomon, son of Whale Watch founder and Takahanga Marae upoko (leader) Bill Solomon, was found guilty of 10 charges of sexual violation, rape and kidnap at a jury trial in February.
But even after the verdicts, he denied raping and sexual abusing three young girls in the Kaiko¯ ura area in the 1980s and 1990s, when he was aged between 14 and 22.
After Solomon’s conviction, his health deteriorated and he ended up at Burwood Hospital in Christchurch, ‘‘virtually immobile’’, with complications from morbid obesity, including an infection and back problems.
Solomon’s lawyer Andrew McKenzie suggested a community-based sentence, saying his health made prison a disproportionately severe sentence.
Crown prosecutor Mark O’Donoghue said he should be sentenced to prison anyway, as a signal to the community such offending was unacceptable.
One of the victims, raped twice by Solomon as a teenager, told the court she still suffered social anxiety and panic attacks, more than 20 years later.
She was first raped while
staying with Solomon’s family in Oaro, south of the Kaiko¯ ura township, the court heard.
When the adults left the house Solomon offered her beer and she got drunk, before he took her to a bedroom and raped her.
On another occasion she was drinking at the Solomon house before being taken to a party in central Kaiko¯ ura, where she fell asleep in a bedroom.
Solomon woke her up shortly before dawn, took her down to the beach and raped her in a public toilet, ‘‘callously leaving her to find her own way home’’, Judge Zohrab said.
The woman, who now lives in Christchurch, said she felt sick even driving through the town of Kaiko¯ura. ‘‘I refuse to go to Kaiko¯ ura now . . . it makes me feel physically sick, right to the core when I go back there,’’ she said in court.
Over the years she avoided social events and ha¯ ngi out of fear Solomon would be there, and was very protective about her own children, she said.
The other two victims were aged between 7 and 14 when Solomon sexually violated them and forced them to perform sexual acts, many times over several years, at his house or in the back seat of vehicles.
Judge Zohrab said the women all struggled with trust issues, a sense of shame and worthlessness, loneliness and guilt. ‘‘You were expected to care for and protect them from harm,’’ Judge Zohrab said to Solomon.
Probation described his offending as systemic, premeditated and degrading, and recommended prison.
Solomon’s prison term would be served in hospital until he reached a healthy weight, as New Zealand’s prison hospitals did not have the resources to provide for his medical care, Judge Zohrab said.