A Dunedin man has been found guilty of repeatedly sexually assaulting his stepdaughter over a four-year period.
The 47-year-old had been on trial since last week and yesterday the jury returned guilty verdicts on all eight charges, prompting tears in the public gallery.
Judge Kevin Phillips granted interim name suppression and that order also covered other personal circumstances associated with the sex offender.
The man faced three charges of rape, four of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and one of indecent assault but claimed it "absolutely, categorically did not happen".
The jury, though, sided with the victim, who spent several hours in the witness box recounting the abuse which began in 2010.
She told the court how it began in the early hours of the morning following the celebration of her 11th birthday.
The defendant came into her room and pinned her to the bed.
"He was just towering over me, holding me down," the victim said.
The girl tiptoed around the house, washed her bloody bedsheets, then hid them in a plastic bag under her bed.
The next day she hid them under debris in a skip outside the house.
"I just didn't know what to do. I was in shock. I was just really confused from what had happened," she said.
Three of the charges the defendant faced were "representative", meaning they encompassed multiple incidents.
The victim said her stepfather would not always violate her when he sneaked into her bedroom.
"He sometimes would just come into my room at night and just grope me and leave without saying anything ... just real gross," she said.
"He would sometimes just sit on the end of my bed and stare at me. He wouldn't say anything, he'd just stare."
It was a couple of years before the victim went to police and defence counsel Mr Dawson suggested she only did so because she was badgered by a friend.
The reason she was reluctant to make a disclosure was because she did not want to be caught making a false statement, he suggested.
But the woman explained she had wanted to deal with the childhood ordeal in her own way without causing her mother pain.
The jury accepted her version of events.
Judge Phillips convicted the defendant on all charges yesterday and gave him a first-strike warning under the three-strikes regime.
He will be sentenced in July.
Rape carries a maximum penalty of 20 years' imprisonment.