Woman sobs as her partner is found guilty of sexually abusing cousins

Warning: This story contains references of a sexual nature that some readers may find disturbing.

A woman sobbed as her partner was convicted of repeatedly sexually abusing her nieces and nephews.

The man remained expressionless as the verdicts were read. The woman then left the courtroom crying and told her partner that she loved him as he was taken into custody. He replied that he loved her too.

The 26-year-old man faces 27 charges of sexual and physical abuse in the trial, which began last week in the Tauranga District Court.

He was found guilty on most counts, but acquitted on two counts of violence and two counts of sexual assault.

The court heard evidence of forced oral sex, groping, hands under clothing and physical violence against five plaintiffs, who were between 10 and 15 years old at the time of the alleged offence.

The plaintiffs are cousins ​​and lived or resided in a whānau home in Kawerau, where the defendant and his partner, the children’s aunt, also lived for a time.

In its closing arguments, the court heard that the case would hinge on the key question: did the alleged events happen or not?

The jury would have to be sure to believe the plaintiffs’ evidence and the witnesses’ testimony regarding the allegations.

Questions of consent may not be so relevant because the plaintiffs are old and cannot understand the nature of the acts they were allegedly asked to perform or were performed on them, Judge David Cameron told the jury.

Defense attorney David Bates urged the jury to proceed systematically and not to be overwhelmed by the 27 charges.

He reminded the jury that his client denied all charges.

“This may seem incredible given the flood of evidence you have heard,” he said.

He explained to the jury that it was not the quantity of evidence that mattered, but rather its quality.

His client was a credible witness and convincingly demonstrated that the events he was accused of never took place.

He pointed to the defendant’s long working hours and said the defendant’s explanation that he did not spend much time with the young cousins ​​was quite plausible.

He reminded the jury that his client’s evidence, in which he explained that he did not have a driving licence and was not entitled to drive a family car, was an adequate defence to the allegation that he sexually assaulted one of the family’s teenage cousins ​​on multiple occasions in that car.

Prosecutor Catherine Harold said the jury could assume that the prosecution’s evidence was sufficient to convict the defendant.

“They were real, credible witnesses,” she said.

She talked about how the cousins ​​confided in each other, their reluctance to tell adult family members, and their shyness about talking about things of a sexual nature.

Given the allegations and the family dynamics, it all makes “a lot of sense,” she said.

What the court heard

The most serious and common allegations involved a teenager who said he was forced to perform oral sex on the man so often that he became “used to it.”

He told the court that the man had taken him out of sight, taken advantage of the fact that they were alone in the car, or come into the room where he was sleeping and “force” him to perform oral sex.

He said the defendant threatened to beat him if he did not comply.

The first incident is said to have occurred when the boy was 13 years old, the last incident is said to have occurred when he was 15 years old.

Another plaintiff said she was led outside onto a porch one night by the defendant after he found her disturbed.

She claims he gave her a comforting hug from the side before putting his hand in her bra.

A younger cousin, who was 12 at the time of the alleged offence, said she was sleeping in the living room next to her grandmother when she woke up to find the defendant trying to “stick” his hand between her legs and touch her “private body parts”.

“I felt like if I screamed I would wake up the whole house, but if I didn’t I would be in even bigger trouble,” the girl said in her statement.

She claimed his abuse later escalated when he took off her pants and sexually assaulted her in a small shed on the property.

In her video evidence, she said she was “frozen.”

“All I know is that I was scared and afraid of what happened.”

The court heard from the other two plaintiffs that the defendant exposed and played with his genitals, swinging them around and staring at the younger of the two, a girl who was ten years old at the time.

The man is in custody pending the verdict.

Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter with NZME. She previously covered courts and local government for the Nelson Mail and before that was a radio reporter with Newstalk ZB.