A Samoan man convicted of sexually violating a girl for several years from when she was three years old has lost his appeal against deportation.
New Zealand Herald reports that Tupou Ogosi, a New Zealand resident, was issued a deportation order last August because of his conviction in 2003.
The 41-year-old, who maintains his innocence, is serving a four-year concurrent jail term on charges of sexually violating and indecently assaulting the girl between 1997 and 2001.
The defendant appealed the order in October, but the Deportation Review Tribunal rejected it. The tribunal accepted that deporting Ogosi would be harsh on his wife and her two teenage children, who are New Zealand citizens.
But this was outweighed by the risk Ogosi posed to the public, particularly in light of his refusal to acknowledge the offending and subsequent failure to rehabilitate, the tribunal said in its report.
It described the charges as “very serious sexual offending against a small child”, but could not consider the soundness of the convictions.
The tribunal took into account two Parole Board reports from 2004 and 2005 – in which Ogosi continued to deny the charges – to assess the likelihood of re-offending.
“To summarise, the Parole Board has determined that Mr Ogosi remains an ‘undue risk to the safety of the community’,” the tribunal report stated.
Ogosi’s appeal was made on the grounds that deporting him would be unduly harsh on his family.
The appeal also stated Ogosi was well supported by wider family members and his church group, that his immediate family all reside in New Zealand, and deporting him would separate him from his family, who would be unlikely to return to Samoa.
Ogosi arrived in New Zealand in 1995 on a visitor’s permit. He remained in the country illegally for about four years after it expired.
In 2001, under the direction of the Immigration Minister at the time, Lianne Dalziel, he was issued a work permit.
He was granted residency in 2002 after he married a New Zealand citizen.
