A High Court judge says the nine-month home detention sentence for Jayden Meyer, who raped four girls, 'was manifestly inadequate” but has rejected a Crown appeal against the sentence.

Deputy solicitor-general Madeleine Laracy filed the appeal, which crown solicitor Anna Pollett says is 'usual” in Crown appeals against sentences, after outrage following the perceived leniency of the sentence sparked a series of protests in September across Aotearoa in Mount Maunganui, Hamilton, Whanganui, Gisborne and Taupō.

In an appeal ruling issued on Wednesday, Justice Sally Fitzgerald says that the District Court's approach to sentencing had been 'irregular and contrary to established principle” and that an appropriate sentence would have been 'at least three years and five months imprisonment”.

However, she also says 'the Crown's application for leave to appeal out of time is declined”.

Meyer was found guilty in July this year of raping four young women and sexually violating another.

The offending took place during 2020 and 2021, when Meyer was 16 and the girls were 15.

Meyer, now 18, received a nine-month home detention sentence which he is understood to be serving at a family residence in Auckland.

Fitzgerald says several factors led her to dismiss the appeal, including the fact imprisonment now would be 'crushing” for Meyer, he had already served just over a third of his home detention sentence and his engagement in a sexual offending programme.

'The interests of justice are best served by declining the Crown's application for leave to appeal out of time,” she says.

She also outlined why an alternative submission to increase his home detention sentence was also rejected, despite noting she was 'initially attracted to that suggestion”.

'It replaces a manifestly inadequate sentence with another manifestly inadequate sentence. I expect it may also be viewed as an affront to the victims.”

Fitzgerald says the initial sentencing process for Meyer 'lacked transparency, which in turn undermines public confidence in the administration of justice”.

However, she also acknowledged that, until the appeal was filed, 'a sentence of imprisonment had never been suggested as a possible sentence in this case”.

She also says a prison sentence now would have 'a real risk of undermining progress to date in rehabilitation”.

Meyer is serving a nine-month home detention sentence for raping four young women and sexually violating another. Photo: Martin De Ruyter/Stuff.

'This is a particularly important factor in my view,” she says.

'I also take into account that while the seriousness of the offending in this case called for a sentence of imprisonment, home detention is nevertheless the second most restrictive sentence in the hierarchy of sentences.

Fitzgerald also rejected the perception home detention is an 'easy” sentence.

'It is a difficult sentence and highly restrictive of an offenders' liberty.”

She also noted that now Meyer has a number of criminal convictions for serious sexual offending, there will likely be 'long term effects for him”.

'I have not reached this conclusion lightly,” Fitzgerald says.

'I am also acutely aware of the position of the victims. I expect that they and their families will feel aggrieved by this outcome. However, Mr Meyer, and other young men, can be under no illusion that in the ordinary course, serious sexual offending is, absent compelling features, likely to result in a sentence of imprisonment.”

- Benn Bathgate/Stuff.co.nz