The judge voiced suspicion that the defendant might have underplayed, to a degree, his involvement in the scheme. But he noted that everything the man said was backed up in the agreed summary of facts, which the judge was bound to regard as the final word on the matter.
“I accept the defence proposition that in the unique and unusual circumstances of this particular case the gravity of offending is low, or at least low to moderate,” he said.
‘In some ways, a good thing’
The defendant was charged in September with assisting a person under 18 to provide sex services, which carries a maximum possible sentence of seven years’ imprisonment.
Court documents state the teen had met with between 10 and 20 clients from February to April last year.
She had met the defendant around 2023 or 2024 via Whispa, an anonymous messaging app, and kept in touch until the teen moved in with him in January last year. She showed the defendant a fake ID showing her age to be 17, but he knew her to be young because he would drop her off at school, authorities said.
Judge Lance noted during the hearing that there was nothing sinister alleged about the friendship or how the two came to live together. The teen, he noted, wanted to get out of a turbulent household and asked him if she could be a flatmate. Her parents allowed her to move in after having dinner with the defendant to suss him out, he said.
“He is a hard worker, looks after his children as best he can and has had some trauma in his own background, which might have affected his judgment to some degree,” Judge Lance said.
After moving in, the teen was encouraged to enter the sex industry by another adult flatmate who paid her rent through prostitution. She helped the teen set up an account on an escort website.
That woman has also pleaded guilty and is set for sentencing in June.
The male defendant actively discouraged the idea, according to the agreed summary of facts.
“The victim told the defendant that she would continue to provide commercial sexual services elsewhere at another address” if not allowed to do so in his home, at which point he relented, court documents state.
But police prosecutor Victor Wagner, who argued against a discharge without conviction and permanent name suppression, pointed out that the defendant’s involvement went beyond mere tolerance.
“He would inquire about her potential clients and on one occasion gave her advice on how to communicate with them,” the agreed facts state. “He would be present at the address in the evenings and on weekends to ensure her safety when she had clients.
“The defendant also gave the victim a wireless doorbell, which she could use in the room as an alert if she felt unsafe or got into trouble.”
While he did try to discourage it at the start, by the end he was facilitating it, Wagner said.
“It’s accepted clearly that it is serious offending,” Wagner said, noting that the defendant was aware the victim was vulnerable due to her family background. The purpose of the law, he said, was to protect young people from just such situations.
The judge, however, was not entirely convinced.
“In some ways, that’s a good thing, I think,” Judge Lance responded of the defendant’s involvement. “He’s at least tried to ensure she’s safe without in any way trying to get commercial gain from it. He didn’t in any way organise clients.
“It’s a very unique and unusual situation.”
‘Manipulated’
The victim had hoped to make it to court with her mother for the hearing but was unable to attend. The judge allowed the prosecutor, over the objection of the defence, to read part of her victim impact statement aloud to the mostly empty courtroom anyway.
Much of the statement, the defence argued, focused on trauma that should be attributed to the co-defendant.
The part that was read aloud focused on the girl’s feeling of betrayal by a person she had known since age 14 or 15. The defendant took advantage of her lack of strong parental figures, she said, explaining that she felt a compulsion to keep happy anyone who made her feel seen, safe and cared for.
“At first, I convinced myself the work I was doing was okay,” she said.
But as time went on, it became a source of constant anxiety, to the point where she was self-harming.
“Inside, I felt despair,” she explained, adding that she is now left with a feeling of deep insecurity. “When everything was finally exposed … it felt like my whole world was shattered.”
Despite all that happened, she said, she had missed the defendant intensely and would cry every night after she was removed from the home.
“She has been manipulated by an adult … who should have known better,” the victim’s mother said in a separate statement read aloud in court. “This has affected the well-being of our entire family.”
Extreme hardship, extortion
The man’s lawyer argued during the hearing that police were trying to suggest his client was akin to a brothel operator when that clearly wasn’t the case. Although the victim paid the defendant rent, there was never a requirement that the money had to be derived from sex work, Newman told the judge.
His client should receive a discharge without conviction and permanent suppression in part, he argued, because of the employment hurdles he would face. His employer, a “fairly prestigious” business in the hospitality sector, has stood by him so far but that support could vanish if his name was released, Newman speculated.
If the defendant was forced to apply for a new job, his age would be a first hurdle, the lawyer said. And seeing his name associated with the charge would likely lead an employer to assume he was involved in sex trafficking, he said.
“It’s almost inevitable the employer in that situation would simply not inquire any further,” Newman said.
Police argued that the defendant’s potential employment issues would be a normal consequence of being found guilty of a crime, not anywhere near the “extreme hardship” bar needed for permanent suppression. At any rate, Wagner said, it was speculative given the support the defendant had from his current employer.
But the judge agreed the “particularly unsavoury” charge itself would fail to give a complete picture if he were to undergo a background check for a new job.
Also supporting the defence’s argument for suppression, the judge said, were allegations that the victim’s father used his gang connections in an attempt to extort $6000 from the defendant.
Judge Lance said he believed the offence to have been a “one-off” given the defendant’s lack of prior criminal history and the lessons he seemed to have learned since he was charged.
He ordered the man to pay $1000 in emotional harm reparation.
“It goes without saying … that you never want to find yourself in this situation again,” the judge warned the defendant. “The result would not be the same.”
The defendant acknowledged the comment before turning to leave the courtroom.
“I understand completely, Your Honour,” he said.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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