Newstalk ZB
Convicted murderer Malcolm Rewa, one of New Zealand’s most notorious serial rapists, now has yet another sentence added to his substantial criminal record thanks to the decades-long persistence of a teenage survivor who never forgot his sadistic and terrifying treatment of her in a chance encounter nearly 40 years ago. Rewa, now 73, returned to the dock today in the High Court at Auckland, a place he’s well familiar with, having sat through three high-profile trials for the 1992 murder of Susan Burdett. His last retrial, in 2019, saw him convicted of that killing after jurors were told about 20 of his rape cases. “Your actions profoundly changed her life,” Justice Simon Mount told the Rewa today in the most recent case. He stole the woman’s faith in humanity, the judge said, “replacing it with shame, fear ... and despair”. “She’d be perfectly entitled to consider it too little too late,” he said of the sentencing, commending her for taking steps to get the cold case solved. Authorities, he pointed out, could not be credited for doing so. The case for which Rewa was sentenced today involved a 16-year-old girl who was approached from behind and strangled into unconsciousness with a rope in 1988. She had been attending an 18th birthday party at an Onehunga home that night and strayed down the street to get some fresh air. She was sitting on the kerb when Rewa, then 35, tapped her on the back, according to the agreed summary of facts. He then threw the rope around her neck and dragged her to the back of the property as she grasped at the ligature before passing out. “As the complainant regained consciousness, she was pushed face-first onto the wet grass,” court documents state. “She began to panic, she started yelling and swearing. The defendant pushed her down further until she was flat on her stomach.” He then bound her hands behind her back with the same rope, leading her to think she was going to die, and gagged her with her pantyhose so tightly that she lost a tooth. Her top was pulled over her head so she couldn’t see. Rewa raped her for 10 to 15 minutes before walking away. She was later able to walk blindly to a tree, rubbing against it until the shirt covering her face was lowered, then walked back to the party, still exposed and with her arms bound, to raise the alarm. But by then Rewa was gone, and neither she nor anyone else knew who he was. Details of her case bear a striking resemblance to other rapes that had been described to juries at Rewa’s previous trials. Other victims were also caught by surprise by a stranger who blindfolded them and covered their tops. That same night, the victim let authorities take a DNA swab in hopes of identifying the rapist. But it would be another eight years before a nationwide DNA databank was created, and by then the investigation was no longer active. Last year, however, it was revived after the woman called police to ask whether the DNA sample was still on file and whether it had ever been compared to the databank. “She noted that the nature of the attack on her made her think that the person may well have offended against someone else,” court documents state. ‘I paid dearly’ The woman, now 53, told the court today that the attack had been a defining feature of the past 37 years – something that would be “etched in my mind forever”. Before that evening, her future had looked bright, she explained. “I lost part of myself that night, and I’ll never get that back,” she said as Rewa looked down at the ground from the dock, only the thinning hair on the top of his head visible. “You destroyed my faith and trust in mankind.” Not knowing who was responsible for the attack for so long was also damaging, she said, explaining that she lost trust even in her friends. “I’ve replayed that night over and over in my mind tens of thousands of times, try...
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