R v Mapu [2018] NZDC 8926 (4 May 2018)

Last Updated: 5 June 2019

EDITORIAL NOTE: CHANGES MADE TO THIS JUDGMENT APPEAR IN [SQUARE BRACKETS]

NOTE: PUBLICATION OF NAME(S), ADDRESS(ES), OCCUPATION(S) OR IDENTIFYING PARTICULARS, OF COMPLAINANT(S) PROHIBITED BY S 203 OF THE CRIMINAL PROCEDURE ACT 2011.

IN THE DISTRICT COURT AT NAPIER

CRI-2017-020-002846

[2018] NZDC 8926

THE QUEEN

v

[ALLEN MAPU]

Hearing:	4 May 2018
Appearances:	J Rielly for the Crown R Stone for the Defendant
Judgment:	4 May 2018

NOTES OF JUDGE A J ADEANE ON SENTENCING

[1] The defendant, Mr [Mapu], arrived in [location details deleted]and took up residence in [city deleted] with his [relatives], and their [children]. Amongst these were two daughters then aged [under 16 years]. The defendant was [more than three decades older].

[2] He shortly became established as a senior member, both of the family and at [details deleted], and from this time he began a course of sexual grooming of the girls beginning with the younger. This began with intimate touching, progressed to digital penetration and then when she was around 13 years of age to full sexual intercourse against her will. These episodes apparently were frequent, came to include a full catalogue of sexual activity and were occasionally accompanied by physical violence to enforce her compliance. On one occasion late in the piece, she was threatened with

R v [ALLEN MAPU] [2018] NZDC 8926 [4 May 2018]

a machete and attacked in the presence of her family which led to a complaint and the whole sorry story coming to official notice. That complaint was made in [date deleted] by which time the complainant was [over 18] years of age.

[3] It also came to light in the course of that that the defendant had forced sexual activity on the older complainant when she was between 15 and 16 years of age. This included various acts of rape, an episode of forcible sexual violation by digital penetration after the complainant had announced that she was pregnant and the defendant told her to get rid of it.

[4] When finally confronted the defendant admitted the fact and extent of the sexual activity. Said that he thought the girls were aged 15 at the time and that they had got into his bed wanting sex from him.

[5] As a result of all of this in respect of the first complainant, the defendant faces 19 charges.

• (a) A representative charge of rape over a seven year period.
  
• (b) A total of three representative charges of sexual violation, extending over a nine year period.
  
• (c) Two charges of sexual conduct with a child.
  
• (d) Four of sexual conduct with a young person.
  
• (e) Four of indecent assault.
  
• (f) Two of male assault female.
  
• (g) Finally possession of an offensive weapon.
  

[6] In respect of the second complainant he faces nine charges.

• (a) Three of rape.

• (b) Three of sexual violation.
  
  • (c) Two of sexual conduct with a young person.
    

[7] In [date deleted] he pleaded not guilty to all of these matters and elected jury trial but early in March this year he indicated an intention to plead guilty and has since done that.

[8] He is now [age deleted]. [Details deleted]. He is considered to be [details deleted]. As a result of all of that he was the [details deleted]. His offending, as I have already indicated, involves a good deal of breach of trust.

[9] Paradoxically the defendant was previously married for [details deleted] but is [relationship details deleted]. He has [children] between [age range of children deleted]. Despite that, and despite the absence of known prior convictions, and the apparent outward conventionality of his family background (with these present matters excepted) he is still assessed by the Department as “sexually deviant” and at “high risk” of sexual offending. The Parole Board will be alert to these issues for very obvious reasons.

[10] That assessment is in sharp juxtaposition with the defendant’s own view of matters in which no remorse features and in which the victims were the instigators of the offending.

[11] I have concluded that any further excoriation on my part of the defendant’s conduct would be unproductive in these circumstances. [Details deleted]. The charges, the facts and the defendant’s response to them each speak for itself without any further comment.

[12] Cases involving repeated rape of child and teenage family members over a period of years fits the paradigm contemplated in para [109] of R v AM.1 So too do the associated aggravating features in this case of a high degree of harm done to the

1 R v AM [2010] NZCA 114, [2010] 2 NZLR 750

victim, degradation of the victims around many aspects of the sexual offending and accompanying physical violence.

[13] The case therefore falls into band 4. The precise starting point is then really of little practical interest otherwise than to legal academics and case comparators. What is clear is that a very long term of imprisonment consistent with other cases close to the worst of kind must be imposed on this defendant. But at the same time the Court must recognise the sad fact that other and worse cases are imaginable.

[14] It is also to be remembered that ascension to the upper end of band 4 is often predicated on the presence of more than one complainant so that care need to be taken in further uplifting for that same factor.

[15] In my view the starting point for the whole of this offending should be set at 17 years imprisonment. The Crown concedes, perhaps charitably to some extent, that a 25 percent discount could be given. I set the reduction in year terms at a reduction of four years. Given the required sentence of 13 years’ imprisonment, in my view, the Parole Board becomes uniquely positioned to consider the timing of the defendant’s release. That is also the case because of his present position concerning the offending. It is not my intention at this point to set a minimum non-parole period.

[16] Finally, I decline to adjust the sentence so as to reduce on a speculative basis, the proportion which the sentence might represent of the defendant’s remaining years. That matter too is better left in the purview of the Parole Board according to future circumstances. For these reasons, the following sentences are imposed:

• (a) For rape, 13 years imprisonment.
  
• (b) For each other case of sexual violation, eight years’ imprisonment.
  
• (c) For sexual conduct with a child, six years’ imprisonment.
  
• (d) For sexual conduct with a young person, four years’ imprisonment.
  
• (e) Indecent assault, three years’ imprisonment.

• (f) Male assault female, nine months’ imprisonment.
  
  • (g) Common assault, three months’ imprisonment.
    
  • (h) Possession of an offensive weapon, three months’ imprisonment.
    

All sentences are concurrent. The defendant is sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment.

[17] Finally, there will be an order suppressing publication of defendant’s name. To do otherwise would inevitably identify both complainants.

[18] He is to be entered on the child sex register.

A J Adeane

District Court Judge