Sex offending spanning 20 years and involving his stepdaughters and step granddaughters has caught up with a 52-year-old Christchurch man who on Friday began a five year three month jail term.
The man's name was suppressed to protect the identities of the four victims, one of whom described him as "a well-practiced predator".
The man has since remarried and has been supporting his wife and her son.
He was appearing at a crown sentencing session before Judge David Holderness in Christchurch District Court after pleading guilty to two charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and five charges of indecent assault.
The offending began when the girls were as young as eight. The oldest of the victims are now aged about 30, and the younger victims were her daughters.
The judge said the sexual violation charges related to the stepdaughters and involved digital penetration and the indecent assaults were also serious representative counts indicating a type of conduct over significant periods of time.
When interviewed by the police, the man acknowledged the offending against the two older victims, but denied the extent of the offending against the younger girls.
Judge Holderness said the pre-sentence report recommended home detention but that was not realistic. In deciding the length of a jail term, he had to bear in mind the sentencing levels that existed at the time of the offending.
He had to take into account the extent of the harm to the victims, and the on-going effects of the offending, the breaches of trust, the premeditation, the coercion of the victims, and their vulnerability.
Defence counsel Michael Starling asked for a reduction in sentence for the man's guilty pleas.
He had raised no issues with the summary of facts or the pre-sentence report.
"He cannot remember some of the elements, but has no doubt that the victims are truthful in their accounts."
