R v Laurence

[2013] NZHC 956

ORDER PROHIBITING PUBLICATION OF NAMES OR IDENTIFYING PARTICULARS OF COMPLAINANTS PROHIBITED BY S 139 OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT 1985.

FURTHER ORDER MADE PROHIBITING PUBLICATION OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PRISONER AND COMPLAINANTS AND THE ADDRESSES WHERE THE OFFENDING OCCURRED.

IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND WELLINGTON REGISTRY

CRI-2012-032-000812 [2013] NZHC 956

THE QUEEN

v

ARRON PAUL LAURENCE

Counsel:         I R Murray for Crown

G L Turkington for Prisoner

Sentence:       3 May 2013

NOTES ON SENTENCING OF COLLINS J

Introduction

[1]      Mr Laurence, you are to be sentenced in relation to 65 offences to which you have pleaded guilty.  There is a slight discrepancy between the criminal records and the summaries of your offences.   I am proceeding on the basis that you are to be

sentenced on:

R V LAURENCE HC WN CRI-2012-032-000812 [3 May 2013]

(1)       15 charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection;1

(2)       20 charges of performing an indecent act with a boy under the age of

12;2

(3)       seven charges of performing an indecent act on a boy aged between

12 and 16;3

(4)       eight charges of producing an objectionable publication;4

(5)       ten charges of distributing or supplying an objectionable publication;5

and

(6)       five charges of possessing an objectionable publication.6

[2]      In sentencing you I will explain: (1)     your offending;

(2)       the starting point for your sentence;

(3)the adjustments that need to be made to reflect the totality of your offending;

(4)the discount that I will give you for your guilty plea and factors that are personal to you;  and

(5)the minimum period you must serve in prison before you can be considered for parole.

1      Crimes Act 1961, ss 128(1)(b) and 128B.

2      Sections 140(1)(b) and 132(3).

3      Section 140A(1)(a).

4      Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993, ss 123(1)(a) and 124(2)(a).

5      Sections 123(1)(d) and 124(2)(a).

6      Section 131A(1).

[3]      From the outset  I explain that while you were initially considered to be eligible for a sentence of preventive detention, I will not be imposing that sentence. The Crown quite properly appreciates that the reports prepared by health assessors under s 88 of the Sentencing Act 2002 do not establish to the requisite degree that you are likely to commit another qualifying offence once released from a finite

sentence of imprisonment.7

[4]      There is therefore not sufficient information to enable me to sentence you to preventive detention.

Your offending

[5]      In explaining your offending I emphasise for the benefit of the media that nothing can be published which identifies your victims.  For these reasons not only are the names of the victims suppressed, but also the towns in which your offending occurred and your relationship with the victims.  Your name, however, can be published.

[6]      Your first victim, JA, was living [suppressed].  Your offending against him took place between 1999 and 2000 when he was aged between eight and ten years old.  You befriended this victim and began to engage in sexual acts with him.  You took photographs of your offending.  This led to three of the charges of performing an indecent act with a boy under 12 and two charges of sexual violation.  The most serious of these charges relates to an incident where you attempted to have anal intercourse with your victim.

[7]      Your offending while you lived in [suppressed] followed a similar pattern of befriending young boys, inviting them into your house with promises of playing with a playstation, food and cigarettes before sexually abusing them.   Four victims fell prey to your behaviour while you were living in [suppressed].  The first [suppressed] victim, JB, was befriended by you in 2002, when he was ten years old.   He was invited to your house to play with a playstation.  On occasions he stayed the night.

The victim was from a troubled family and initially felt safe visiting your house

7      As required by s 87(2) of the Sentencing Act 2002.

where he was fed and allowed to play games.  You used these opportunities to sexually abuse the victim without his knowledge whilst he was asleep.  Your victim was subjected to four incidents of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and two indecent acts, all of which were recorded in still images and later installed on a computer hard drive.   The most serious of these offences involved anal intercourse with the victim.

[8]      The second [suppressed] victim, MW, was approached in a similar manner and invited to your house to play with a playstation and smoke cigarettes.   The victim was 12 at the time and was subjected to four instances of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and three indecent acts.  Again the most serious of these offences were incidents of anal intercourse.  You took over 300 photographs of this sexual abuse occurring.

[9]      The third [suppressed] victim, LE, was aged between 12 and 13 at the time he visited you at your home.  He was shown pornography on your computer and was subjected to two indecent acts, one indecent assault and one incident of sexual violation.

[10]     The fourth [suppressed] victim, AT, was befriended in a similar manner to your other victims.  He was invited to your home to play with a playstation before being subjected to sexual abuse, all of which was recorded by you.  The most serious of  the  incidents  against  this  victim  was  serious  sexual  violation  while  he  was sleeping.

[11]     The next victim, MM, met you in an internet chat room in 2004, when you were living in [suppressed].  After several weeks of grooming your victim you met him at a train station and took him back to your house where you provided the victim with cigarettes and cannabis.  This had a powerful effect on the victim.  You then took this victim to your bedroom and made him watch pornographic images while you performed a number of sexual acts on him.   This resulted in two charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and two charges of performing an indecent act with a boy aged between 12 and 16.  The most serious of these incidents

involved you having anal intercourse with the victim.  You recorded all of these acts taking place. That recording was found by police on your computer.

[12]     The seventh and eighth victims, FL and NL were brothers, and the sons of [suppressed].  You occasionally babysat them and used this as an opportunity to sexually abuse them both.  The period of this offending was 2006 to 2008 when the boys were aged between five and eight years old and eight and ten years old.  The youngest brother was subject to one instance of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and nine indecent acts, while the other brother was subject to three indecent acts.  Most of these acts were committed while the boys were asleep.  These acts were also videoed by you.  Recordings of your offending were also found on your computer by the police.

[13]     The charges of possession of objectionable images and videos relate to the files found on your computer and other electronic storage devices when you were arrested in July 2011.   The images in this collection relate to the victims of your offending and many other victims of child exploitation.  You were found with over

31,000 images in your collection, and the police estimate that 98 per cent of these would be deemed objectionable.

[14]     The  charges  of  production  of  objectionable  publications  relate  to  your recording, through images or video, of the sexual offending against all eight of your victims.  You stored all of the images of each victim in a folder under each of their names.  In most cases the victims did not know they were being filmed as the camera was hidden or they were abused while they were sleeping.

[15]     The  charges  of  supplying/distributing  objectionable  publications  relate  to your activities in distributing images over the internet.   The police were able to locate images that you were supplying and distributing on the internet and downloading them through a file sharing network, which you had been a member of since June 2007.

Starting point of your sentence

[16]     In setting the starting point I have selected the 15 charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection as the lead offences.  I will later adjust the starting point in relation to those offences to reflect the totality of your offending.8

[17]     In R v AM the Court of Appeal identified two sets of sentencing bands for: (1)          sexual violation by rape;  and

(2)       unlawful sexual connection.

[18]    In your case, five of the charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection involved penile penetration of your victim’s anus or mouth.  This type of offending involved four of your victims.  Accordingly, I will sentence you on this offending by reference to the rape bands of offending explained in R v AM.   The other sexual violation charges will be subsumed into the sentence imposed in relation to the five charges involving penile penetration.

[19]     The Court of Appeal identified four bands of rape offending by reference to aggravating features. The Court of Appeal explained:

Band 1	6-8 years	No aggravating factors will place offending at the low end;  one or more factors  to  a low  or moderate degree will place offending at the high end.
Band 2	7-13 years	Moderate  offending,  with  moderate violence or premeditation.

8      R v AM [2010] NZCA 114, [2010] 2 NZLR 750 at [48]-[49].

Band 3	12-18 years	Two or more aggravating factors are present to a high degree, or more than three factors present to a moderate degree.
Band 4	16-20 years	Generally similar  features  to  band  3 but  usually  involving  multiple offences over considerable periods of time.

[20]     In your case, I assess there are six aggravating factors: (1)     Planning and premeditation

Through your predatory behaviour you planned and attracted young boys to your home, deliberately targeting those who would be most receptive to your offers.  This level of premeditation is a particularly aggravating feature of your offending.

(2)       Scale of your offending

Your   abuse   occurred   over   a   ten   year   timeframe   albeit   not continuously during that timeframe and involved, in total, eight victims.

(3)       Degree of violation

I include within the concept of violation the fact that you recorded the sexual abuses you carried out.  This exacerbated the violation of your victims, many of whom were unaware that you were recording your acts of depravity.  Some of the victim impact statements identify the fact that you filmed your offending as being a particularly distressing revelation.

Your victims were particularly vulnerable and chosen by you because of their vulnerability.  Your victims were aged between five and 13
years when you violated them.  At this time you were aged in your
late 20s and early 30s.  The disparity between your age and the age of your  victims  is  a  factor  that  highlights  the  vulnerability  of  your
victims, as is the fact that you deliberately chose some victims whose family circumstances made them particularly vulnerable.
(5)	Breach of trust
You were babysitting two of your victims when you violated them.
Others were in your temporary care.  Your offending involved a gross breach of trust.
(6)	Harm to your victims
The victim impact statements make chilling reading and attest to the
detrimental consequences to your victims of your offending.
[21]	Afte	r careful consideration I have concluded that your offending fits within

the lower end of band 4 of R v AM and therefore justifies a provisional starting point of 16 years’ imprisonment for the charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection.   In reaching this conclusion I have compared your offending with the offending in similar cases,9 which were instances where offending that was similar to yours resulted in the sentencing judges adopting starting points of 16 years for offending that was placed at the bottom of band 4 in R v AM.

Adjustments

[22]     I am, however, going to adjust the starting point upwards by a further year to reflect your other offending.   In doing so, I record that had you been appearing

9      R v Cudby [2012] NZHC 636 and R v Turner HC Whangarei CRI-2010-027-1635, 11 April

2011.

before me only in relation to the charges brought under the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 you would in all likelihood have received a sentence of three years’ imprisonment.10   The magnitude and nature of that offending justifies an increase in the sentence that I impose on you.  Increasing your sentence by a further three years to take account of this offending would produce a sentence of 19 years’ imprisonment.    In my assessment that sentence would be disproportionate to the totality of your offending.11    Accordingly I am increasing your provisional sentence to 17 years.

[23]    I will now consider what factors I can take into account in reducing your sentence.

[24]     The pre-sentence and psychological and psychiatric reports note that you are remorseful.  Your letter to me demonstrates your remorse and concern for your victims is genuine.  You have also expressed a strong willingness to engage in treatment to address the factors that contributed to your offending, and in particular your alcohol dependency.  Dr Caldwell’s letter and the reports from Dr Barry-Walsh and Dr Haines show that you are strongly motivated to avoid offending in the future.

[25]     You also pleaded guilty and in doing so saved the victims the trauma of a trial.   However, after you pleaded guilty you attempted to withdraw a number of your  guilty pleas.   Your application  to  vacate your  guilty pleas  was  granted in relation to two charges by the District Court on 11 December 2012.

[26]     In deciding what discount to give you I have taken a global approach and will discount your sentence by 25 per cent to reflect your guilty pleas and your remorse. This produces an end sentence of 12 years and nine months’ imprisonment.

[27]     In reaching that end sentence I have considered whether or not 12 years and nine months fairly and adequately reflects your offending.  I have concluded that this

sentence satisfies the principles in the Sentencing Act 2002.  In particular it:

10     R v Zhu [2007] NZCA 470.

11     Sentencing Act 2002, s 85.

(2)       provides for the interests of your victims;13

(3)       denounces your conduct;14

(4)       should deter others;15

(5)       protects the community from you;16   and

(6)       is the least restrictive outcome that is appropriate.17

Minimum period of imprisonment

[28]     Section 86 of the Sentencing Act 2002 allows me to impose a minimum period  of  imprisonment  where  I  consider  that  one-third  of  the  end  sentence  is

insufficient to uphold the following purposes of sentencing:

(1)	holding you accountable for the harm done to your victims and the community by your offending;
(2)	denouncing your conduct;
(3)	deterring  you  and  others  from  committing  the  same  or  similar offending;  and
(4)	protecting the community from your offending.
[29]	In	my assessment, a minimum period of imprisonment of six and a half years

is warranted in your situation because of the scale and seriousness of your offending

12     Sentencing Act 2002, s 7(1)(a).

13     Section 7(1)(c).

14     Section 7(1)(e).

15     Section 7(1)(f).

16     Section 7(1)(g).

17     Section 8(g).

and because of the factors set out in s 86 of the Sentencing Act 2002 to which I have just referred.

Conclusion

[30]     Mr Laurence, will you please stand.

[31]    On all charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection I am sentencing you to a total period of 12 years nine months’ imprisonment with a minimum period of six and a half years’ imprisonment.

[32]     On all other charges I sentence you to three years’ imprisonment in relation to

each offence. Those sentences are imposed concurrently.

[33]     I also make orders for the destruction of your computers, hard drives and any other image storing devices that have been seized by the police pursuant to s 136(2)

of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993.

D B Collins J

Solicitors:

Crown Solicitor, Wellington