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Offender Databases Ricky Matenga

Ricky Matenga

Alias

.

Offences

Kidnapping, raping and sexually violating a 16-year-old Napier girl in November 1998

Victims

.

Offender Affiliations

Aaron Akuhata

Gang affiliations

none known

Age

Born 1970

Current Location

unknown

Parole/Release Dates

Sentenced to just 6 years in July 1999

Background
From a Dominion story July 15th 1999
TWO men found guilty of kidnapping, raping and sexually violating a 16-year-old Napier girl have been jailed for six years after appearing in the High Court at Napier. Ricky Matenga, 29, of Tauranga, and Aaron Olympus Akuhata, 25, a Gisborne forestry worker, were found guilty on five counts after a five-day trial before Justice Goddard and a jury of seven men and four women last month. They were acquitted of four other counts of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and rape.

The charges arose after the girl accepted an offer of a lift home from a Napier nightclub after a night out with friends last November. However, instead of taking her home to Maraenui the men and another who was driving the car subjected her to an ordeal lasting more than an hour. The two men maintained the young woman consented. Justice Goddard told the two men that their behaviour toward the girl changed from "merely cavalier to complete and callous indifference to her feelings".

The 16-year-old complainant was their junior in every sense despite her bravado and apparent worldly wisdom in court. "You took total and intentional advantage of her and you knew what you were doing." The two men were on a boys' night out looking for young female flesh in the nightclubs of Napier, not their first foray for such a purpose, Justice Goddard said. Matenga was a predatory male and his attitude to the young woman in his written statement to police was "extremely distasteful".

Until they understood the effect their behaviour had on this young woman and probably others on earlier trips they would not become good citizens, she said. It was not too late for either man to go forward from this experience but both had to think where they were in their lives. "Listen to your family and think of your children," Justice Goddard told Matenga. She said that though there was little actual violence in the incident, non-consensual sex was by its nature implicitly violent. The jury's verdicts importantly vindicated the complainant and gave the clear message that such behaviour toward young women was not only wholly unacceptable but criminal, she said.

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Corrections and Additional Information
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