NZ News
Serial sex offender raped new mum days after birth, baby beside her
WARNING: This story details sexual assaults and may be distressing for some readers.
Shannan Taylor raped a woman while she was recovering from giving birth, her newborn within reach.
The woman resisted but the attack was part of a pattern of sexual abuse against her.
Less than a fortnight earlier, Taylor had raped another woman.
But his sexual offending stretched back even further than that.
Taylor is already serving a prison sentence for sexually abusing children and young people.
Now, he has been sentenced for raping the women, bringing his total amount of time behind bars to 22 years.
The sentencing took place in the High Court at Whanganui after Taylor was found guilty at trial on three charges of rape, one of which was representative, one charge of attempted sexual violation by unlawful connection and one count of assault.
Raped days after giving birth
At the recent hearing, Justice Christine Grice said Taylor repeatedly raped one of the women over a period of time.
The final time it happened was in the days after she had given birth.
Taylor visited while she was in bed recovering, having just fed her newborn, who slept beside her.
He sexually violated the woman and when she resisted, he twisted her arm behind her back and pinned her down.
Taylor then raped her, as she told him “no” and stressed her baby was next to her.
Photo: Supplied / Ministry of Justice
She suffered split stitches and heavy bleeding, leading to an infection.
When she later challenged Taylor about the rape and told him she thought her infection might have been caused by it, he laughed and told her that “she liked it”.
Less than a fortnight earlier, Taylor had raped the second woman.
She had put him up for the night when he needed accommodation and the two drank wine together.
At one point, she ended up face down on the ground and Taylor carried her into the bedroom.
“She has a fragmented memory and only recalls drinking one bottle of wine but does not know what happened in the rest of the evening,” Justice Grice said.
“What is clear, and what was accepted by the jury, is that you raped her at this point.”
Lives reshaped by trauma
The primary victim told the court the abuse had profoundly changed her.
“What you did did not end on the day of the offending. The effects of it continue to follow me every single day,” she said in her victim impact statement.
She now lives with post-traumatic stress disorder and severe social anxiety, which she said affected every part of her life.
“I struggle to sleep, my physical health has suffered, and there are days when even basic tasks feel overwhelming.”
She said panic attacks and hypervigilance were constant reminders of the trauma.
“I no longer move through life with confidence and ease. I carry fear with me everywhere. The emotional toll has been exhausting and relentless.
Justice Christine Grice says Shannan Joseph Taylor’s history shows a “serious and persistent pattern of sexual offending”. Photo: NZ Herald / Bevan Conley
“I have had to rebuild my life from the ground up, slowly and painfully, while carrying trauma that never truly leaves.”
The second victim described herself as a confident, motivated, independent and joyful woman before the rape.
“After the rape, that version of me disappeared.”
She told the court her mental health deteriorated, daily life became difficult, and she experienced overwhelming anxiety and exhaustion.
Being in her home, where the rape occurred, had become unbearable, she said.
Her alcohol use escalated “dramatically” as she tried to “numb the pain”, and her relationships also suffered.
“It has dismantled a stable and independent life and replaced it with fear, isolation and ongoing trauma.”
[h No regret or insight
At the time Taylor, now in his mid-40s, offended against the women, he was already facing prosecution for multiple sexual offences against several other victims. .
For the earlier offending, he was sentenced to 16 years’ imprisonment on more than 20 charges, some of which were representative.
At the recent sentencing, Justice Grice said Taylor’s history showed a “serious and persistent pattern of sexual offending” that began when he was 21.
She described it as “gravely concerning” and that it involved physical and psychological coercion.
In setting a sentencing starting point of 12-and-a-half years’ imprisonment, Justice Grice took into account the scale of Taylor’s recent offending, the breach of trust and the victims’ vulnerability, the significant and enduring harm caused, and the presence of violence.
She then applied 10 percent credit for Taylor’s background, which involved significant hardship, abuse and deprivation, according to reports provided to the court.
He began using cannabis and alcohol as a child and continued as an adult, and also used methamphetamine.
Taylor, who developed literacy in adulthood, completed a painting and decorating apprenticeship and once owned a business, and has not been diagnosed with any physical or mental health conditions.
But Justice Grice said he experienced anxiety and one report writer considered an assessment for psychopathy may be appropriate in the future.
A clinical psychologist said while Taylor purported to accept responsibility for his offending, he framed it in a way that blamed external factors, including intoxication and the victims’ behaviour.
There was no suggestion that Taylor held any regret for his offending nor did he show any insight into the impacts on the victims, the psychologist reported.
Risk remains but rehab still possible
While the discount resulted in a sentence of 11 years and three months, Justice Grice needed to consider the length of the sentence Taylor was already serving.
An adjustment for totality reduced the sentence to six years, which was imposed cumulatively, bringing his overall sentence to 22 years.
No minimum period of imprisonment was set, with Justice Grice finding it would serve no practical purpose given the length of the combined sentence and the role of the Parole Board.
The Crown sought preventive detention, citing Taylor’s long history of sexual offending and the risk he could reoffend.
But while Justice Grice accepted Taylor was currently a risk of serious reoffending, she found his rehabilitative prospects had not yet been exhausted, declining to impose the indeterminate sentence.
“It has barely started. You are at the beginning of the process of pursuing rehabilitation,” she said.
“As long as you engage, genuinely and without ulterior motive, in the programmes that may be offered to you, the risk you pose to women and girls is likely to reduce.”
Taylor will become eligible for parole after serving one-third of his 22-year sentence.
Where to get help: Sexual Violence
- NZ Police.
- Rape Crisis: 0800 88 33 00.
- Rape Prevention Education.
- Empowerment Trust.
- HELP (Auckland): 09 623 1700, (Wellington): 04 801 6655.
- Safe to talk: 0800 044 334.
- Tautoko Tāne Male Survivors Aotearoa.
- Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) 022 344 0496.
If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
Source: NZ Herald & RNZ
Latest News
Opportunities to mitigate multi-million-dollar RNZ budget blowout likely missed – experts
Multiple opportunities to identify and mitigate a multi-million-dollar budget blowout at RNZ appear have been missed, according to the former executive director at Audit New Zealand.
The public broadcaster on Monday revealed a near $12 million shock financial loss after a litany of financial blunders, which will now lead to sweeping job cuts.
The $11.8m loss is more than 25 times the $470,000 RNZ had expected to lose over the year to June.
CEO Paul Thompson took responsibility for the result, and said internal reports gave an inaccurate picture of the finances, meaning the scale of the loss only became clear in October.
RNZ’s former chief financial officer Hilary Parker resigned unexpectedly in early October.
The board said it would commission an independent review into what went wrong.
Independent contractor Stephen Walker, who left the Audit Office earlier this year, said the size of the loss was surprising, as was the length of time it took to identify it – months after the financial year ended.
Supplied / OAG
“Probably more of a concern is that they had seemingly been unaware that they were running up a significant deficit until they were in the preparation stage of their annual report in October.”
Walker said public entities typically produced monthly financial reports.
An interim audit also took place before the end of the financial year, he said, but if the organisation hadn’t identified significant losses at that stage, the auditor could also be in the dark.
“It seems that there’s a real weakness in forecasting and budgeting that’s occurred here and that the monthly accounts, when they’re produced, either haven’t identified these significant variances against budget or the magnitude of them really hasn’t come to light until right towards the end of the financial year,” Walker said.
“And really at that point, there’s no opportunity for the chief executive, the leadership team to take, and the board to take, any corrective action because the year has effectively been completed.”
Walker said the “significant miss” was difficult to account for given it was more than 10 percent of RNZ’s total funding.
He said based on RNZ’s annual report, financial complexity didn’t appear to be a factor.
“This $11.8m loss isn’t made up of one particular item … it seems to have been contributed to by a number of separate expense lines running over budget. So I don’t think it’s necessarily to do with complexity.”
Among the errors, RNZ wrongly counted $2m from land sales as income in its budget. Staff costs also came in $3.2m over budget, including $1.4m in redundancy payments.
Professor at Auckland University’s business school Norman Wong said based on media reports the issues identified were “significant and troubling”.
Supplied / University of Auckland
“But recognising the sale of land as income in their budget is a basic error that one would have expected to have been caught and corrected well before it got to this point.”
With funding reductions at RNZ over the past two years, Walker expected greater scrutiny of financial results.
“Virtually every public entity has had their annual budget reduced. And so you would expect … the leadership team on a monthly basis and board – I’m not sure how frequently the board will consider the information – but you would expect them to be interrogating the results on a regular basis throughout the year,” he said.
Walker said initiating an independent review was the correct course of action and that he’d want to understand what information the leadership team and the board were regularly receiving.
He said he’d “love to say” surprising financial results were rare, but conceded they occured on a semi-frequent basis during his time leading the Audit Office.
“The benefit of independent scrutiny by the Audit Office – and the auditors providing that support to the Auditor General – [is] that the reporting is fairly presented at the end of the year, whether it’s good, bad or ugly.”
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