Schoolgirls’ rapist gets ‘lucky break’ — no jail
‘Appalling’ attacks on multiple victims earn detention at home, supervision
An Auckland teenager who raped and sexually violated multiple teenage girls has been sentenced to home detention and supervision. He was arrested after multiple women made rape and sexual assault complaints to police in 2020. He was charged with rape, unlawful sexual connection and indecent assault against five victims and pleaded guilty to all his charges.
He was due to be sentenced in September last year but his hearing was delayed by the Delta lockdown.
Judge Claire Ryan yesterday declined the 19-year-old’s application for permanent name suppression but his lawyer John Corby immediately appealed, meaning his name was still suppressed.
Five of his victims attended his sentencing hearing at the Auckland District Court yesterday, with three of the women and their parents making emotional victim-impact statements.
The offending occurred from 2017 to 2020, when he was aged 14 to 17.
Three of the victims — who attended his school at the time of the offending — successfully applied to have their name suppression lifted in order to speak publicly about what happened to them and protect other women.
They are Rosie Veldkamp, Mia Edmonds and Ellie Oram.
The Herald also applied to report the name of school he was attending at the time, but the school’s lawyer successfully argued for its permanent name.
The Herald has requested comment from the school’s principal.
In her victim-impact statement Edmonds — who was raped when both she and the offender were 14 — said she could not explain with words the physical and psychological torture she had been put through.
“His actions that night unleashed a . . . poison on me that crept into every aspect of my life,” she said.
“I felt completely powerless. Despite doing everything young women are told to do — not wearing revealing clothes, asking for help, fighting back — he still got his way. I truly feared for my life that night and that terror never left me.”
After he violated her, she felt “disgusting” and wanted to shed her skin, she said.
“I was completely alone at 14 years old, attempting to process trauma even adults struggle to process.”
His sentence was reduced due to his guilty plea, mental health issues, his youth and a recent diagnosis of high-function autism.
Crown prosecutor Pip McNabb wanted a sentence of imprisonment, pointing to the repeated nature of offending and stating she believed he had shown no remorse.
But his defence lawyer sought a non-custodial sentence.
The judge started with a prison sentence of 7.5 years but gave the man discounts for his guilty pleas as well as his youth, his mental health issues, his autism and the rehabilitation he had undergone.
In total, he had a 73 per cent discount, leaving him with 24 months’ imprisonment. But expert advice was that sending him to prison would see him learning from more experienced sexual offenders, she said.
“I don’t want to see you back here as an older offender much more skilled in . . . committing sexual violence.”
She imposed a sentence of 12 months’ home detention and 12 months’ supervision and reminded him if he breached the conditions of his sentence he would be jailed.
And she told him he had been given “a lucky break”.
“What you did to these young women was appalling . . . you’ve got the rest of your life to make up for what you’ve done. This is a chance for long-term rehabilitation.”