Restaurateur jailed for under-age sex
A Christchurch restaurateur has been jailed for two years four months for having sex with a 15-year-old girl.
Damian Radburnd, 38, had pleaded guilty to the two charges of having sexual connection with a young person.
Prosecutor Kathy Basire said the Crown was concerned that Radburnd had written in a letter to the judge ahead of the Christchurch District Court sentencing: “I succumbed to the pleasures of life in a situation classified as illegal.”
She referred to Radburnd’s “clear lack of insight into the offending”.
The offending took place on two occasions in December and January when the girl had been given alcohol, and the pre-sentence report writer had “identified that there were elements of sexual grooming”, she said.
Defence counsel Phillip Allan said it had not been Radburnd’s intention to take advantage of the girl, but he had “given in to his own self-interests and needs”. After his guilty pleas, Radburnd had taken steps to enrol for a STOP course, and would go ahead with that if he was left in the community. He was assessed as a low risk of reoffending.
Judge Craig Thompson said the pre-sentence report acknowledged Radburnd’s expression of remorse, “but the writer has some reservations about the depth of that remorse”. Radburnd had a tendency to minimise or justify his offending.
The judge said he accepted that Radburnd now had some genuine insight and regret for what had happened.
But he noted the offending had happened twice, which showed a degree of conscious choice in situations where the girl was affected by alcohol and he was aware she was under age.
The courts had said that imprisonment would be the only appropriate sentence for people who had committed sexual offences against young persons.
He refused suppression of Radburnd’s name.
Category: Focus
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