Illustrative photo
Congolese parents who abused their teenage daughter by forcing her
to take freezing baths, hitting her and cutting her hair because they
thought she was a witch, were both found guilty by a jury in Auckland on
Wednesday of several charges relating to almost four years of abuse,
and were subsequently jailed.
After being convicted, the duo told court workers they were
innocent because they were performing witchcraft on their 15-year-old
girl because they believed she was possessed.
The girl's mother arrived from the Democratic Republic of the Congo
in central Africa in 2007 and put down roots in a North Island town.
She met her husband a few years later and in 2012 they moved to Auckland
with the woman's teenager daughter and the three children the couple
had together.
At the Auckland District Court yesterday, the jury heard how the
abuse began in 2010 and continued until June 2014. Over this time, the
man would hit his step-daughter until she got into a very cold bath and
forced her to stay in it for long periods while her mother stood by.
"I'm satisfied that she came close to hypothermia at times. She stopped counting at about 30 such baths," Judge Rob Ronayne said.
The man also forcibly cut the girl's hair and told the woman to braid what was left to hide the bald patches.
"She described all of her hair being cut off, I accept that
that did not literally happen. But in my view, it was a young girl's
perception of your cruel and degrading treatment, cutting chunks out of
her hair," Judge Ronayne said.
On one occasion, the stepfather grabbed the teenager in a bedroom
and held his hand over her mouth and put his hand around her neck until
her vision went blurry and she struggled to breathe.
He told her she was garbage and that she would never grow up - the bedroom would be her cemetery.
On another occasion, the couple tied the teen up with an electrical
cord and when she loosened the bonds, they were re-tied which caused
her pain in her legs and she struggled to walk afterwards.
"[In another incident] in her room where you [stepfather]
grabbed her, you pushed her down, hurting her arm. You locked the door
with a chair, you pinned her from behind. She mentioned you trying to
take her pants off. She fought you and she hit you so hard she hurt her
own arm.
"I'm quite satisfied there is an element of indecency in these assaults. They had a sexual theme to them," Judge Ronayne said.
He also trusted the teenager's testimony, saying her victim impact statement revealed someone who was "fortunately a resilient young woman" and that he found her to be a "careful and particular and honest witness in every respect".
Before he sentenced the duo, Ronayne said there was a need to
denounce this type of abuse of vulnerable children and a "need to bring
home" that they were responsible for what took place and to be held
accountable for what they'd done.
He told the man: "The reality is that you have an ingrained
belief system which you variously use sometimes and deny at other times
depending on what suits you in the circumstances. You are not being
honest at all."
The man was sentenced to 2 years and three months in prison for
jointly intentionally engaging in conduct that would harm the teenager,
four months for the male assaults female, nine months for a
representative charge of male assaults female and three months for
common assault.
The woman was sentenced to one year and nine months for jointly
intentionally engaging in conduct that would harm the teenager and three
months for common assault.
Source: NZ Herald
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