Recognising stealthing as a crime
The conviction is significant because it recognises everyone has a right not only to choose to consent to sexual activity but also to choose what conditions are placed on that consent.
This is also significant for the New Zealand police who have been accused of not taking reports of stealthing seriously in the past.
Furthermore, the landmark New Zealand judgment paves the way for other countries to reconsider their laws. There is currently a proposal to outlaw stealthing as a factor that negates consent before the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly.
Last year, the New South Wales Law Reform Commission also suggested changes to the state s legislative regime. This would mean sex with a condom is legally defined as a specific activity that can be consented to, without consent to any other sexual activity, such as sex without a condom.
Last week’s sentencing
of a Wellington man for rape was legally significant for
being New Zealand’s first successful prosecution for what
is known as “stealthing”.
Stealthing occurs
when a condom is removed without consent during sexual
intercourse. In these cases, a person may have consented to
sex but only under certain conditions for example, with
the use of a condom.
In this case, Jessie Campos
was found guilty of raping a sex worker in a Lower Hutt
brothel in late 2018, and sentenced to three years and nine
months in prison. The court was told he was made aware on
Wellington District Crime Squad manager detective senior sergeant Haley Ryan told the
NZ Herald last week it was the country s first known conviction for this type of offending. The defence argued there was no premeditation and a cultural report on the man, who is from the Philippines, was directly relevant to the sentencing. Campos has been in the country since 2016. Judge Harrop disagreed, stating there was an element of premeditation to the case as he was told multiple times a condom was necessary and that sex workers were no less victims than any other survivor. I can t proceed on the basis that raping sex workers is any more acceptable (in the Philippines) than it is here, he said.
Sex workers and customers are required under law to use protection. She had told him a number of times that a condom was required, and he said he understood. Campos wore a condom for the first sexual encounter but when he requested a position where she was not facing him, the victim became suspicious. She saw him remove the condom in a mirror and pulled away, turning over and telling him off, waggling her finger at him. She put another condom on him to continue, but he pulled it off and proceeded to rape her. It is believed to be one of the first convictions for ‘’stealthing’’ in New Zealand.