A Cromwell man who forced a 15-year-old girl to perform a sex act on him nearly eight years ago has been sentenced to home detention.
Dominic Charles Richard Forsyth (30) was sentenced on a charge of doing an indecent act when he appeared in the Alexandra District Court on Thursday.
The offending occurred in Cromwell on December 3 in 2015, when Forsyth was 22 and having an intimate relationship with a friend of the victim, who was also 15.
The victim was at a sleepover at her friend’s home when the friend, without parental knowledge, invited Forsyth around sometime between midnight and 1am.
While the trio were in a caravan at the back of the property, the victim tried to sleep while her friend and Forsyth talked.
The defendant and friend then lay on the bed, with Forsyth between the two girls.
He started touching both girls’ thighs, bottoms and breasts over their clothing without the other knowing, and continued to touch the victim after she moved his hands away.
When the victim’s friend realised what Forsyth was doing, she got up and left the caravan.
Forsyth then began forcefully kissing the victim, persisting as she tried to move away from him.
By holding her hand, he forced her to touch his penis, then made her perform oral sex on him by holding the back of her head.
When the victim told him she did not want to do that, he gripped her hand and made her masturbate him.
He eventually got up and left the caravan.
Soon after the incident, Forsyth sent her a message telling her not to talk to anyone about it.
Police prosecutor Ella Scown read out a statement by the victim describing the impact of the incident on her.
It had left a deep and lasting impact on her life, negatively affecting her mental health and relationships.
When she confided to adults in her life about what had happened, she was made to feel she was to blame for getting herself in an unsafe situation.
Only in the past two years had counselling helped validate her feeling that what happened was wrong, and not her fault.
Counsel Jacinta Grant said mitigating factors for sentencing were the ‘‘one-off’’ nature of the incident and lack of premeditation. There was no violence, ‘‘even if the victim felt she had no choice’’.
The defendant had a clean criminal record at the time of the incident, and admitted the charge at the earliest opportunity, Ms Grant said.
He felt ‘‘extremely remorseful’’, but claimed to have no memory of the incident because of a prior traumatic brain injury.
Judge Robinson said the defendant was persistent and ‘‘coercive’’ in his conduct against a girl smaller than him, seven years younger and unable to resist.
She was isolated and vulnerable after her friend left the caravan.
‘‘The most disturbing part of this case was the use of force. You forced her to perform oral sex on you.’’
From a starting point of three years’ prison, he made reductions for Forsyth’s youth and lack of convictions at the time of the offence, and his early guilty plea.
That brought the term of imprisonment down to 21 and a-half months, which he converted to 10 and a-half months’ home detention at a Cromwell property.
Forsyth must also carry out 200 hours’ community work, and pay the victim $2000 reparation for emotional harm.
- Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air
