December 15, 2008

Jarden brother admits two historic rapes

By David Clarkson

Wayne Robert Jarden, younger brother of notorious sex offender Kevin Moana Jarden, has admitted two historic rape charges and may face an open-ended preventive detention sentence.

If he were to be jailed indefinitely by the High Court, it would mean that two brothers were serving preventive detention terms at the same time.

Wayne Jarden, 50, pleaded guilty to charges of burglary, burglary while armed with a weapon, and two rapes, at a pre-trial session before Judge Gary MacAskill in the Christchurch District Court today.

He was remanded in custody to April 3 for sentence. At the request of crown prosecutor Kerryn Beaton, the judge called for the psychiatric and psychological reports which are necessary to decide if a preventive detention sentence should be considered.

She said the reports would help the court as well as counsel on both sides. If the case is to be considered for preventive detention, the sentencing judge will have to send Jarden to the High Court which has the power to impose that term.

Jarden?s brother Kevin Moana Jarden was sentenced to preventive detention in March 2004 for repeatedly raping two young girls. His 40-year criminal record lists 88 convictions including indecently assaulting a woman and indecent exposure. Since then, Kevin Jarden has also been convicted of an historic rape from 1988, also involving sexual violation and burglary.

He was convicted from DNA evidence in 2006, in a two-day trial where the facts were eerily similar to the offences admitted by his brother Wayne today.

Miss Beaton told the court that just before midnight on February 2, 1988, Wayne Jarden entered the yard of a St Albans address and spent a long time prowling, looking in windows, and preparing for the attack.

The partner of the 27-year-old victim was working that night, and a flatmate was also out.

Jarden cut strips of cloth from a duvet hanging on the washing line. He took a bicycle and placed it against a fence along the road.

The victim had a friend visiting, and about 9pm they heard rustling sounds from outside the lounge window.

The friend left at 10.30pm and the woman went to bed at 11.55pm.

Jarden broke in through an upper laundry window that had been left open, reaching down to open the larger window below. He used a candle to light his way through the house.

In the dining room, he moved the dining table into the centre of the room, and used knives to jam the back and front doors. He placed a bottle of hand lotion in the dining room, and put a pair of stockings over his head as a disguise.

He then got the victim up at knifepoint, telling her, ?I want your dope, that?s all I want.? He told her to shut up or he would slit her throat.

He then gagged her and walked her to the dining room where he tied her face down on the dining table using strips of cloth cut from the duvet, and two belts. He placed a pillowcase over her head, cut off her underpants, used the handcream on her genitals, and raped her. He made about five thrusts before withdrawing.

The victim told him her cannabis was outside and he went outside, using the bicycle to leave the scene.

Jarden was identified as the offender in January 2008 after DNA testing of a semen stain on the underpants the victim had put on after the attack.

About 6.30pm on April 28, 1996, Jarden went to a Shirley cul-de-sac where the 90-year-old victim of the second attack lived alone in a council flat.

When she answered the door, he said, ?I?m your grandson?, before pushing his way in and throwing the victim onto her bed. Her glasses and hearing aid were dislodged, and Jarden took her false teeth out after she screamed.

He then raped her while she pleaded for him to leave her alone. ?Don?t tell the police,? Jarden told her, when he had finished.

The victim received abrasions and bruising, and lacerations to her genitals. She died about three years after the attack.

Jarden was identified as the attacker by DNA testing in January 2008. He denied the facts, but pleaded guilty today.

He is a single man, employed as a labourer, and he has a criminal record.

Defence counsel Tony Garrett said four matters in the crown?s summary of facts were not accepted by Jarden, and would be clarified at the sentencing.