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Allegations of Sexual
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Over the last three weeks, the
Weekend Press has been investigating the way rape complaints are dealt with
in Our reporting has found that female
rape victims are avoiding or dropping out of the criminal-justice system at
phenomenally high rates. We received dozens of emails and phone calls,
particularly from people concerned about injustices within the court process.
This week, we look at the adversarial
court system we have now, and ask whether it needs refining, or replacing
with a more humane model. In 1993, the maximum penalty for
rape was increased from 14 to 20 years. A snapshot of recent cases shows that
worst offenders are getting open-ended sentences, but fixed terms vary. Wayne Andrew Herbert Adams, 35,
was jailed for 10 years this week, with a minimum non-parole term of five
years, for raping a mother in front of her child. It had taken three trials,
after the first was successfully appealed and the jury disagreed in the
second. This meant the complainant, 22, had to give evidence three times. Napier man Trevor Eagle, 31, was
sentenced last month to preventive detention with a minimum non-parole period
of 10 years for 11 charges including rape, abduction, sexual violation and
robbery. He abducted a woman, 24, and repeatedly slapped, strangled and
bashed her during a 15-hour ordeal. ·
In March last year, an Iraqi refugee got preventive detention and was
ordered to serve a minimum non-parole period of seven years for his third
rape. Akeel Hassan Abbas al-Baiiaty had just been freed from jail after
multiple sex attacks on Auckland prostitutes. ·
Nicholas Reekie, 32, got preventive detention in 2003 with a minimum
non-parole term of 25 years for sex attacks on young girls and a 69-year-old
woman he abducted from a rest home. ·
In 2003, John William Vine was jailed for six years for two counts of
raping girls between 12 and 16. The victims were sisters, raped in the early
1970s. ·
Jason John Cumming got preventive detention in 2002 and was ordered to
serve at least 7½ years, for abducting, raping and beating a girl, 16.
Cumming, who had no defence counsel for his nine-day trial at the High Court
in Christchurch, questioned the victim himself. In March the Supreme Court
granted him leave to appeal his case. ·
New Zealand's worst known serial rapist, Joseph Thompson, was jailed
for 30 years in 1995 for his reign of terror. He must serve at least 25 years
before he can apply for parole. He admitted 129 sex offences against women
and girls. Contrast those sentences with the
55-year sentence, with a 40-year non-parole period, imposed in 2002 on a man,
20, found to be the ringleader of a series of vicious gang rapes in And the two men beheaded in a
public square in the Saudi capital, Do you have a story to tell? Email
Yvonne Martin at [email protected] Feedback to [email protected] Need help? Try contacting: The Sexual Abuse Centre, phone
365-3626. Its website is www.sexualabuse.co.nz Sexual Abuse Survivors' Trust,
phone 377-5401. Its website is www.sast.org.nz |
