Warning: This story deals with the sexual abuse of children, the details of which may be distressing to readers.

A father encouraged his 5-year-old son and a 6-year-old girl to undress and pose for photos.

With the children naked, the father would undress too, before taking photos that included close-ups of their genitals. He would give them naked “horsey rides” and take photos of them playing the “games”.

As the children grew older, he began to incite them to perform sexual acts together.

According to a police summary of facts, he told them sex was “a normal part of life for both adults and minors” and he was “instructing” them how to have sex.

The man pleaded guilty to 26 charges related to the offending, which took place over about seven years, and he was sentenced in the Tauranga District Court last week.

The father’s now-adult son told him, through a victim impact statement read at sentencing, that he realised there was nothing “normal” about his experiences.

“You taught me that children should pose for men’s pleasure. You taught me that having sex with your children is normal. You taught me that looking at pornography is normal. None of it was normal, but I thought it was, at least until I was 20.”

The only home the boy had known was one where his father “decided what was right and wrong”.

“You were above the law,” the son said.

His father had moulded him into poses, coerced him into illegal acts and “robbed [him] of [his] ability to be a happy, socially connected child”.

His father had failed to protect him and used violence against his mother, which made it “too difficult” for her to protect him.

“Both people who were solely there to protect me didn’t,” he said.

The son is now in his early 20s and is seeking professional help to deal with his trauma.

The father was sentenced in the Tauranga District Court last week, having pleaded guilty to 26 charges related to abuse of his son and another child. Photo / file

At the end of the day, the man was still his father, he said.

“That’s the hardest thing for me. You broke my family.”

The friend, who was also subject to the most serious offending and is now in her early 20s, said the events of her childhood continued to “impact every area of [her] life.”

“I do not do well socialising as I have a lot of anxiety in leaving my home. My home is my safety and sanctuary.”

When she left home, she needed a chaperone in case she had a panic attack. “I have no trust left for those who say they will protect or look after me, or say they love me.

“It has totally skewed my view of life and relationships, whether they be friendships or romantic.”

The Crown submitted that, though the father hadn’t done any physical touching, he had encouraged the children to do things “far beyond their comprehension or years”.

“It’s because of that the Crown says that, despite the fact he hasn’t engaged directly in the touching, his culpability is really the same,” prosecutor Richard Jenson said.

How the offending came to light

In 2014, the defendant sold a laptop computer to a family friend, deleting images of the children from the device.

However, about 20 photos were recovered and police searched the man’s home.

He told police it had been the children’s idea to take the photographs and said the kissing in the recovered shots was them “having a bit of fun” and was “as far as it goes”.

The children were spoken to by police but didn’t tell them anything else had happened.

The father was “warned” by police about “encouraging his children and their friends to walk around naked and pose for photographs”, and was told that the photos were “objectionable material”.

The matter was then closed.

After that, the father stopped the offending against his son and the friend but began to be “sexually inappropriate” with his daughter and her friend.

He continued to walk around naked at home and encouraged his wife and daughter to do the same.

His daughter, who suffered from nightmares and was between 8 and 14 years old, would sometimes want to sleep in her parents’ bed.

Her father would tell her that she was allowed in only if she took off all her clothes.

He also behaved inappropriately towards her daughter’s friend, watching her undress and touching her breasts and stomach.

The friend said in her victim impact statement that she has suffered post-traumatic stress, nightmares and anxiety.

“I have flashbacks of what occurred, leaving me feeling upset and unsafe, like I’m on a rollercoaster that I can’t get off,” she said.

The offending came to light when the man’s daughter told her school counsellor about his inappropriate behaviour.

Oranga Tamariki visited the home and the daughter was removed while arrangements were made for a specialist interview.

Police then spoke to the son, who was by then in his 20s. He told police he had been violently and sexually assaulted by his father over several years, but it stopped in 2014 when his father was spoken to by police about the images on the laptop.

The son’s disclosure to police revealed the extent of the abuse.

The sentencing

At sentencing, Jenson said that, when it came to finding other cases to use as a guide, there were few available.

“The unique and somewhat disturbing facts of this case aren’t really directly applicable to any of the authorities that we have,” he said.

The aggravating factors included planning and premeditation, which were expressed in the ongoing nature of the offending over a long period.

Jenson said there had been sexualisation of young victims in a family context, and steps taken to arrange opportunities for offending – waiting for the children’s mother to be out of the house, or asking her to leave.

There was also victim vulnerability, given the age of the children.

He said the most serious offending occurred over approximately seven years.

“It involved a significant breach of trust, offending against one’s own children,” Jenson said.

The man’s lawyer, Michael Douglas, said the judge should take into account his client’s limited intellect, which was outlined in reports provided to the court.

While the defence agreed with the Crown’s identified aggravating factors, the approach by the judge should be tempered by “the reality of the intellectual impairment context that’s at play”.

The defence did not accept that the offending was predatory to the extent submitted by the Crown, because of the man’s intellectual disability.

Both the Crown and defence agreed the man should be given a discount to reflect his guilty pleas, with the lawyers acknowledging how much anguish was avoided by the already traumatised victims being spared from giving evidence in a trial.

Judge Melinda Mason adopted a starting point of eight years’ imprisonment for the most serious charges of inciting, abetting or counselling the two children to commit sexual violations against each other.

In giving that starting point, she stated she had taken into account the man’s limited intellect.

She raised that by a year to account for the other offending against the man’s son and his friend, and another six months for the offending against the man’s daughter and her friend.

That resulted in an overall starting point of nine and a half years.

A 20% discount was given for a guilty plea and 15% for the man’s mental health and background, which had included being the victim of sexual abuse in his childhood.

He was jailed for six years and two months.

SEXUAL HARM

Where to get help:
If it's an emergency and you feel that you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
If you've ever experienced sexual assault or abuse and need to talk to someone, contact Safe to Talk confidentially, any time 24/7:
• Call 0800 044 334
• Text 4334
• Email support@safetotalk.nz
• For more info or to web chat visit safetotalk.nz
Alternatively contact your local police station - click here for a list.
If you have been sexually assaulted, remember it's not your fault.

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