Woman sentenced for indecent acts
A Southland woman sentenced for indecent acts on a child tried to persuade a court where her home detention should be served.
The woman, who has name suppression, was sentenced to seven-anda-half months’ home detention for three charges of an indecent act on a child.
In the Gore District Court yesterday, the woman’s lawyer Simon Claver said she wanted to live at her home address, not her parents’ address, which was proposed at a pre-sentence hearing in October.
However, the court was told the woman’s address was 350m from a school.
Claver said the woman was concerned that living with her parents would place a strain on her relationship with them, and their house was further away from support services.
At the pre-sentence hearing in October, Judge GA Rea indicated a sentence of 15 months’ jail.
But Judge Rea, at that hearing, said if the court could avoid sending someone to prison, it should, and indicated the woman could serve a home detention sentence at her parents’ home.
Yesterday, Judge Richard McIlraith disagreed with Claver and said the woman would have more support with her parents and could be more closely monitored during her home detention, given her mental health struggles.
There was also a non-association order in place with the woman’s former partner, which could also be more easily monitored if she lived at her parents’ address.
Judge McIlraith said there were aggravating factors at the time of the offending, including the abuse of trust involved, the number of incidences and the nature of the acts performed.
Both the Crown and Corrections opposed a home detention sentence because they wanted to protect the community, and if the woman did not want to go to her parents’ house then he had no alternative than to send her to prison, Judge McIlraith said.
The woman then agreed to serve her sentence at her parents’ house, and would also be subject to release conditions for six months.
The woman was given a first strike warning when she pled guilty to the charges in July.