A repeat child sex offender in Auckland, New Zealand has been sentenced to preventive detention with a minimum non-parole period of 8 years and three months.
Glen Taniela Kepa, 41, was found guilty by a jury in the District Court of three counts of rape, two counts of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection (one of them representative), two counts of assault with intent to injure and one representative count for indecent assault on a child.
The victim of all of the offences was a young girl who lived next door to Kepa’s partner’s house while Kepa was serving a sentence for sexually violating a 6-year-old girl. He was also convicted for beating her brother who confronted Kepa over the offending. Kepa choked the boy and swung him around the room, causing him to bang into the bedroom walls and the bed.
The 6-year-old girl committed suicide 10 years later.
The court heard his second victim had slept over at Kepa’s house, before he woke her up one morning and took her to a couch and raped her.
He threatened to kill her or her little sister if she told anyone.
At one stage when the victim refused Kepa he put both his hands around her neck, choking her until she could almost not breathe, only letting go when she nearly passed out.
The victim moved away in 2013 but continued to visit her grandmother during the holidays.
Kepa and her partner had separated and he moved into the victim’s grandmother’s house and started a relationship with her.
On one occasion her grandmother left her and her younger sister alone with Kepa.
The victim was watching TV in the lounge by the fire, and Kepa grabbed her hair and laid her on the floor.
He raped her and pulled a burning log and hit her with it.
The victim told the court she recalled being terrified.
“When you heard the grandmother’s car come back, you made her put her clothes back on and pretend to be asleep on the couch,” Justice Courtney told Kepa.
“You received a first strike warning when you were convicted in the District Court and I am going to repeat that. If you are convicted of any serious violent offence other than murder or any sexual offence other than murder that is a qualifying offence.
“If the Judge imposes a term of imprisonment on you in the event of you committing such offences, you will serve that sentence without parole or early release. If you are convicted of murder committed after this warning, you must be sentenced to life imprisonment and that will be served without parole unless it would be manifestly unjust to do so, and in that event the Judge must sentence you to a minimum period of imprisonment.
“I also record that you will be required to be registered on the Child Sex Offender Register.”
