A man who was convicted of incest after he maintained a relationship with his own daughter has had his appeal for a reduced sentence rejected on March 28.
Sunia Mailau was sentenced to nine years and nine months for crimes occurred in six separate occasions at a house in which he lived with the victim and his second wife.
During his trial the court heard that on the first occasion Mailau forced his daughter to smoke methamphetamine with him before subjecting her to oral sex and other indignities.
On the second occasion he attempted to strangle her with wire and threatened to cut her vagina with scissors.
On the remaining four occasions he raped her. She was a virgin and suffered physical pain and bleeding when he first penetrated her, the court judgement said.
Each time the intercourse was accompanied by indecent assaults including sucking the victim’s breasts.
Justice Cato convicted Mailau of five counts of serious indecent assault, four counts of incest and six counts of domestic violence. He pleaded guilty to a single charge of common assault.
The victim in each case was his daughter, then aged seventeen.
Mailau lodged an appeal in the Nuku’alofa Court of Appeal raising doubt against the Supreme Court judgement regarding the evidence presented against him.
However, the Court of Appeal judges said all decisions by the Supreme Court were consistent with their view that the starting point of eight years adopted by Justice Cato was not out of line with prevailing sentences for incest and entirely appropriate to the offending.
“It was brutal, callous and premeditated,” they said.
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Incest and violence charges lead to long sentence in Supreme Court
