Home detention for sex with girl, drink-driving, assault charges

A Taranaki man’s ‘‘positive steps’’ after racking up six convictions in less than a year, including having sex with a 15-year-old after she cried and refused, have seen him avoid prison.

Between January and November last year, Rhys Raeburn Leatherby was charged with two counts of sexual connection with a young person aged 12 to 16, and unrelated charges of assault with intent to injure, speaking threateningly, driving with excess breath alcohol, and driving with excess breath alcohol third or subsequent.

Earlier this year, Leatherby, 20, pleaded guilty to all of the charges, and he appeared before Judge Gregory Hikaka in the New Plymouth District Court for sentencing this week.

The first charges, which the judge said were the ‘‘main concern’’, arose in January and March 2020.

Leatherby, who was 19 at the time, was working outside Taranaki when he met the teenager, who was also from the region but on holiday.

The pair began exchanging messages on social media, and in the weeks that followed they went to a party together.

After the party, where the pair both consumed alcohol, they had sex. They separately returned to Taranaki, and Leatherby began picking the girl up from school and phoning her late at night. But she started to feel controlled and unsafe around him.

In March, the girl went to a party in South Taranaki and Leatherby picked her up afterwards. He asked to have sex with her, and she told him she did not want to, but he began to touch and kiss her.

Leatherby tried to take off her pants, repeatedly saying that they should have sex, and the girl began to cry. He started offering her comfort – while continuing to touch and kiss her.

‘‘Feeling afraid and as if she had no choice, the victim offered no further resistance and submitted to sexual intercourse with the defendant,’’ the Crown summary of facts said.

‘‘The victim was emotionally devastated by this encounter and felt like she had been forced to have sex by the defendant.’’

At Leatherby’s sentencing on Wednesday, the judge told the court how there was ‘‘alcohol involved in all of’’ the charges.

However, Leatherby had stopped drinking and was attending programmes for alcohol abuse, the judge said.

Leatherby was convicted and sentenced to four months of home detention with post-detention conditions. He was disqualified from driving for 28 days and would have to get an interlock device installed on his vehicle.

He was also ordered to pay $1000 in emotional harm reparation to the girl.