JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/Stuff
Wayne Smith has had an appeal to reduce his prison sentence dismissed.
A chief executive who repeatedly raped a young girl and filmed himself doing so had an appeal against his prison sentence dismissed.
Wayne Smith, 53, was jailed for 17 years by Judge Raoul Neave in February after pleading guilty to 38 child sex charges, including filming himself sexually violating a child.
The charges included rape and unlawful sexual connection with a female under 12 years, committing an indecent act on a child under 12, and possessing objectionable publications.
At the time Judge Neave said they were a “catalogue of offences the like of which I have rarely seen”.
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Smith began to groom the girl, who was aged under 10, almost immediately after meeting her.
He regularly engaged in behaviour with “sexually motivated intentions”.
All the offending happened at Smith’s home, and his son was in the room for some of it.
“The sexual abuse became so frequent that it became routine and normalised for the victim,” the summary of facts said.
In one of the incidents, shortly before raping the girl Smith told her: “This is our big secret.”
But the former boss of Christchurch-based public transport technology company Connexionz appealed against his sentence on the basis that other cases with more aggravating factors were given lesser starting points than he received at sentencing.
Smith’s lawyer Andrew McCormick said he was also not given the full 25% discount on the minimum period of imprisonment he served for an early guilty plea.
McCormick mentioned Smith could have taken the case to trial but didn’t, sparing the family from being dragged through the grim details of the case.
However, Justice Rob Osborne did not agree the starting point in sentencing was incorrect.
He also disagreed the sentencing judge had erred in setting the guilty plea discount at 22.5% – and said a discount set at 20% would have been within range.
“The end sentence cannot be characterised as manifestly excessive.”
The appeal was dismissed.
