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Richard Apperley
.
Rape and unlawful sexual connection with a 15 year old girl in September 1998
Other convictions for abduction and burglary
.
.
none known
Born 1979
unknown
Sentenced to eleven years in December 1998
His final release date February 2006
His sentence end date October 2009
Background
From the Evening Standard 12 December, 1998
The abduction, rape and sodomy of a 15-year-old girl brought an 11-year jail sentence on a 19-year-old Levin man in the High Court at Palmerston North yesterday. Richard George Apperley was sentenced by Chief Justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum to 10-and-a-half years on each of a charge of rape and sodomy, and seven years for abduction, to be served concurrently. He activated a suspended six-month jail term for burglary imposed last December and ordered it be served in addition to the 10-and-a-half years. The chief justice said his starting point for sentence was 16 years, but he gave credit for a prompt guilty plea, and other mitigating factors None of those factors, he said, could "obscure the fact that this was horrendous affending, well up the scale". "The victim impact statgement makes sad reading. At least for the present time, you have destroyed this young woman's life."
On September 15, after separating from the partner he had lived with since they were both 15, and their three children, Apperley went to the home of an acquaintance. The only person there was the victim, whom he had met casually before. Apperley threw her onto a bed, threatened her with a knife and tied her up with rope. He then bundled her into his car, drove her to his own home, and there raped her. He allowed her to dress, then tied to her an exercise weights bar. Soon after, he returned, cut her clothes off with the knife, and sodomised her. He then drove her to a friend's place, dropped her off, and went home -- as counsel Peter Butler said, to await the arrival of the police. The chief justice said that after adjournments for medical reports Apperley entered an immediate guilty plea to all charges. He referred to links between aberrant sexual behaviour and childhood sexual abuse.
Simon Foote, for the Crown, said Apperley had visited upon his victim all of the classic severe aftermath of rape, short of pregnancy. With the maximum sentence available at 20 years, he called for Apperley to be jailed for 12 years. Mr Butler said Apperley was a youth who had taken on the adult roles of partner and father "at a hopelessly young and immature age". Now at 19 years old he was father of three children born in a 30-month period. He had taken the children for granted, but during his remand period had realised how much he missed them. Mr Butler said Apperley had real intelligence simply lacking development, and hoped to be able to study in prison. On September 15 Apperley had known he had a real problem and was looking for help, but didn't know where to find it.
