Underage sex and HIV transmission case in New Zealand
Story from www.stuff.co.nz below.
HIV-positive man jailed for sex with girl
Wednesday, 26 September 2007
An Auckland company representative who had exploitive sex with a young teenage girl during his business trips to Hawke's Bay has been sentenced to six and a half years' jail.
Niven Andrew Todd, who turned 45 on Tuesday, was appearing for sentence in the High Court in Napier on three charges of having unlawful sexual connection with the girl when she was 13 and 14, eight charges of unlawful sexual intercourse and one of criminal nuisance relating to having unprotected sex with the girl after he was diagnosed HIV-positive.
He had admitted having sex with the girl, but in a trial in which he successfully pleaded not guilty to charges of rape and sexual violation, he claimed she consented.
His acquittal on the rape charge came despite the fact that the girl's mother had previously been jailed for eight years after admitting violations of the girl, including aiding and abetting rape by Todd.
Justice Simon France, unable to find comparable cases as a guide to sentencing, regarded the offences as the most serious he had encountered of their type, where sexual violation was not among the charges, and the multiple impacts on the girl, already a victim of previous sexual abuse, were exacerbated by the trauma of waiting for results of tests forced by Todd's health status.
The tests had revealed she was not infected, but the Judge considered that did not detract from the seriousness of Todd's "risk-taking."
During the sentencing, it was revealed Todd continued having sex with the girl after learning she was a victim of serious sexual abuse, for which her own father and another man in his late 60s had both been sent to jail – the latter for 13 years after also being convicted of offences involving other young girls.
In a trial last month, Todd said he met the girl's mother and they began a sexual relationship based on his trips to Hawke's Bay.
The girl and Todd exchanged text messages of a sexual nature before they had even met, and on the night they first met he fondled her as they sat in a movie theatre with her mother, and later had sex in a motel.
The girl told a jury she didn't consent to any of that activity, or that which followed on Todd's subsequent trips to Hawke's Bay in his job as marketing manager for an Auckland packaging company.
Evidence was given also that Todd supplied her with alcohol, cannabis and a sexual stimulant, although he was found not guilty on charges of stupefying the girl.
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