Hide and seek games before sex attacks

Games of hide and seek with Auckland children turned into sex attacks, a prisoner serving time in Christchurch has admitted. 

The 45-year-old inmate, Robert Henry Nepia, disclosed during sessions at the Kia Marama programme for sex offenders in prison that the offending dating back almost 30 years

After the disclosures, he was interviewed by the police and then charged with nine offences which he admitted at a Christchurch District Court sitting inside Christchurch Men's Prison today.

Judge Stephen Erber remanded the solo father in custody for sentencing on April 29. He ordered a pre-sentence report and victim impact reports on the six victims.

In the High Court in Auckland on July 23, 2004, Nepia was jailed for eight and a-half years after admitting 19 sex charges involving children as young as 5. That offending extended from 1979 to 1990. Some of the victims wanted nothing to do with the case and just wanted to get on with their lives.

The sentencing court was told that Nepia was illiterate and had had an "awful childhood" but the judge said his activities had caused significant and lasting hurt.

The further offences he has now admitted took place from 1982 to 1997 and involved small girls and boys as young as 5, when Nepia was aged from 17 to 31. None of the victims was related to Nepia.

The offending began in 1982-83 when Nepia approached a small boy during a game of hide and seek and touched him and performed oral sex.

Four years later, a small girl was said to be scared and shaking as he touched her and performed oral sex. He stopped when someone arrived at the house.

The third offence involved another attack with simulated sex during a game of hide and seek with a 5-year-old girl.

The fourth involved Nepia taking a 5-year-old boy to a shed and preventing him leaving while he touched him and performed oral sex. He admitted unlawfully detaining the child as well as the sex attack.

In 1987-88 he simulated sex with a 7-year-old boy who was scared and struggling during the attack which again took place during a hide and seek game.

The sixth victim was a boy that Nepia got into bed with one night when he was staying at the family's home. He simulated sex with the 5-year-old.

The police confirmed Nepia had initiated the disclosures which led to the charges. They said he had first appeared before the court as a 15-year-old.

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