Sex attack sentence under fire

A former gang thug was bashed with a crowbar by his family in a vigilante attack over allegations that he had molested his sister, niece and a young child.

Members of the family say they are disgusted to see him walking around freely after fewer than six months’ home detention on a charge of indecent assault.

The family say it’s unfair that, by comparison, two of their young men received long prison sentences for the beating after they confronted their uncle about the abuse.

In August last year, two brothers broke down after discovering their uncle had abused their young sister, and earlier abused one of the brothers’ baby daughter and raped their mother when she was a teenager.

They went to confront the man, who admitted the abuse, the men’s mother said. ‘‘I felt good he got a hiding – that was our way of dealing with it,’’ she says.

Their uncle suffered broken bones and a gash to his head. He needed hospital treatment.

When police investigated the beating, the uncle tried to throw them off the trail, and would not press charges.

However, his partner is believed to have tipped off the police about who had assaulted him.

During the assault inquiry, the family say they told the police the whole story, and an investigation into their claims of abuse was also launched.

The mother says the more recent incidents uncovered longburied memories of being raped by her brother when she was 12 and he was 15.

She says she wants to see him face rape charges, but the police told her after the assault that her claims would be better dealt with separately from the girls’ cases.

Earlier this year, the man was convicted of one charge of indecent assault against his niece. He was sentenced at Wellington District Court to home detention and community work, and was ordered to attend counselling.

At the brothers’ court hearing for beating their uncle, they both pleaded guilty and were jailed.

‘‘At the end of the day, we know that what they did – they took the law into their own hands,’’ their mother said.

‘‘I’m not sorry over my sons being [convicted and] in jail. I’m just upset about what my brother has done and how he’s got off.’’

The partner of one brother said the family could not understand why the sentences seemed so unbalanced in comparison with their uncle’s.

The uncle had a violent past, including time spent as a gang thug and a long jail sentence for manslaughter, she said. He was well known to the police, with a long list of convictions. In the brothers’ case, the judge recognised they had no convictions of a similar magnitude to the assault.

‘‘I think who’s the worse offender at the end of the day?’’ the partner said. ‘‘A predator that because it’s his first offence on that charge he should be out, or these boys? It’s their first charge of assaulting someone.’’