Young Gloriavale sex offender a product of his environment
The flawed upbringing of young people at the Gloriavale Christian Community has been highlighted as a young man has been spared convictions on sex charges involving children, all committed when he was aged 14 to 15.
The man, who was also granted permanent name suppression, was said to have committed the offences more than 10 years ago in the remote West Coast religious community, the Timaru District Court heard on Thursday.
While he was discharged without conviction on charges from his time inside the community, he was convicted and sentenced to home detention for two sexual violations in South Canterbury in the years after he left Gloriavale.
Judge Campbell Savage said if the victims of his earlier offending had come forward earlier, and if the man had been held to account in the Youth Court, he could have lived the rest of his life “free from convictions for what is, on the face of it, serious offending”.
“Not only that, he would likely have received some treatment that may have had a beneficial impact on him as he continued to live through his adolescent years.
“It may even have equipped him with the skills to avoid the South Canterbury offending.”
The judge said he wanted to emphasise that in no way had he underestimated the impact on the victims.
“However, I cannot ignore the number of unusual features, that are so unusual as to almost be unique, that existed at the time the offending took place.
“His youth at the time, in my view, is a highly significant mitigating factor.
“The defendant himself was the victim of similar sort of abuse that he visited on his victims.
“So the environment in which the defendant grew up … must be seen as having played a directly causative role in his offending at Gloriavale.
“Sexual abuse was rampant in the Gloriavale environment.”
Judge Savage said a report said “understanding the defendant’s offending behaviour cannot be fully understood without having a wider appreciation of the Gloriavale community as a whole”.