Jail for man’s treatment of sex workers
A 31-year-old man’s treatment of two sex workers has led to a 23-month jail term on indecent assault charges.
Name suppression lapsed at the Christchurch District Court today for Stephen Vance Walker, who had admitted the charges in March.
There had been a prospect of home detention for Walker at that time.
But defence counsel Todd Nicholls acknowledged that Walker had made his own situation difficult by cutting off his electronic bail bracelet and going drinking. It had been a “cry for help” at a time when he was lonely, not coping, and not taking his anti-depressant medication.
The breach had led to him being held in custody on remand for two months, which had been a wake-up call, he said.
Crown prosecutor Steve Burdes said it showed the court could not be confident that Walker would abide by the terms of home detention. “Unfortunately, he has written his own sentence,” he told Judge Jane Farish.
In May 2015, Walker phoned a Christchurch brothel and arranged for a sex worker to call at his house in Avondale, to spend an hour and engage in oral sex and intercourse at a cost of $210.
When the 34-year-old woman arrived, Walker was drunk and wearing only a towel. He pushed her into a bedroom and touched her shoulders, face, and breasts, and repeatedly pushed her onto the double bed. He did not pay in spite of being warned by the woman and her manager who was on the phone that she would leave.
Walker tore the woman’s underwear, blocked the bedroom door, and ignored her requests to leave.
She was shouting at him and got out when someone opened the door from outside.
Five days later, Walker arranged for another sex worker, aged 26, to meet him at what turned out to be a quake-abandoned property near his home.
He led her to a shed but she would not go inside. He then took her into the unlit house to a room where he cleared some of the glass and clothing off the floor.
The woman said she did not want to “do the job” there and complained that she had not been paid and did not want to continue.
Walker grabbed her and touched her breasts, and then tried to pull her pants down and sexually assaulted her. She managed to convince him that she would go to his address, and then drove off and contacted the police and the Prostitutes’ Collective.
Four days later, Walker contacted another sex worker by text message and tried to meet her at the quake-abandoned address. She recognised the address from an alert put out by the Prostitutes’ Collective, and phoned the police. They found Walker waiting at the address and arrested him.
He admitted to police that he did not have any money to pay for sexual services.
Judge Farish said Walker’s pre-sentence report recommended imprisonment. Given his inability to cope with six months on electronically monitored bail, she believed that a sentence of home detention would be setting him up to fail.
She imposed a 23-month jail term, with six months of special release conditions to follow, including attending a psychological assessment, and a drug and alcohol assessment, and taking treatment and counselling as directed.
Category: Focus
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