Home detention for giving 14-year-old girl cannabis

A man supplied cannabis to a 14-year-old girl and then tried to kiss her.

Rhys Impson pleaded guilty to offering to supply a class C drug before facing a jury trial on a number of unlawful and indecent sex charges in Whanganui District Court in July.

Impson was found not guilty of having an unlawful sexual connection with a female aged 12-16, unlawful sexual connection with a female and doing an indecent act with a girl aged 12-16.

Judge Philip Crayton said the drug offending occurred at Whanganui’s Wembley Park.

“She was there voluntarily. She had cannabis with you and then you tried to kiss her,” the judge said.

“She rebuffed you and your evidence was that you stopped.”

Impson and the victim knew each other because her mother had previously had him keep an eye on her when she would go out.

Impson was aware her parents were in custody at the time of his offending.

“She was living with her grandfather. You knew she was vulnerable and was someone who was effectively living without a supportive adult,” Judge Crayton said.

“Your offer of cannabis was a manipulative act, designed to ingratiate her, to put her in debt to you — not for money, but to make her more likely to acquiesce to your sexual desires.”

A series of text messages used as evidence during the trial indicated Impson’s behaviour was persistent. At one stage, Impson offered the complainant money for sexual activity.

“Although this was manipulative, although this was designed to get to an end point, at the end of the day I have two factors,” the judge said.

“The first is he stopped; he didn’t force it. The second is that those messages identified that he went a bit cold on her; there was a long gap and then when she next contacted him for drugs, he went a bit cold.”

It was also noted that what Impson did was not surreptitious, the complainant knew what she was doing and was familiar with cannabis.

Judge Crayton said his impression of Impson as a witness was his credibility was not particularly high.

“The impression I had of you was of someone whose evidence lacked real credibility by the close of your time in the witness box.

“Whatever my feeling in my gut is, the basis of my sentence has to reflect the jury’s finding — when she rebuffed him physically, he stopped.

“The message needs to be understood that the supply of any drug to someone who is a minor is not acceptable and will never be tolerated.

“Had you persisted, you would have gone to prison. Had this been surreptitious, you would have gone to prison. Had your victim not been someone who was previously familiar with cannabis, you would have gone to prison.”

Judge Crayton commuted Impson’s sentence to one of 10 months and one week of home detention.