Alf could understand a mother saying she was shocked that her daughter was raped.
But according to a report at Stuff, she was shocked that her 17-year-old daughter was raped after being “turfed out” drunk from a suburban Christchurch bar.
So does this mean she was shocked that her daughter was drunk (too pissed to stand, actually), and was raped in that condition?
Nope. She is shocked that the bar staff threw her drunken offspring out of the bar (which she had entered by misleading them about her age).
Sure enough, there is no suggestion the drunken girl’s family were in any way responsible for her getting comprehensively rat-arsed.
The case came to light in Christchurch District Court, where Nixon Penese, 20, admitted sexually violating the girl he found in a car park so drunk that she could not stand.
Judge Michael Crosbie remanded him in custody.
The student and her under-age friends used false identification to get into the Bush Bar in Upper Riccarton at midnight on June 4 after drinking at one of the girl’s homes, the court heard.
The teenager was evicted soon after because she was drunk. She fell over in the pub car park and collapsed at a bank car park nearby.
Sorry to digress, but she was in the bar for only a short time, then was thrown out for being drunk, obviously she had been boozing somewhere else before arriving there.
Anyway, we are up to the bit where she has collased in a bank car park.
Penese found her there after being ordered out of the same bar. He had been travelling on a party bus.
He tried to get her into a taxi, but the driver refused the fare. At that time, the girl was so drunk she could not stand, the court was told earlier.
He then waved down a passing car and the driver took them to Penese’s home in Hornby.
No-one else was home. Penese took off the girl’s clothes and had non-consensual sex with her.
She was passing in and out of consciousness, and told him she was disoriented and scared.
The girl’s mother – reasonably enough – hopes the offender can spend some time in prison usefully doing something to make his life better for when he gets out and ensure he never does anything like this again.
But she finds plenty of fault with others, too.
She expresses disappointment that the bar staff let her drunk, under-age daughter in and then kicked her out later in the night.
She does not express disappointment that the silly girl got in by lying to the bar staff by showing them false identification.
Indeed, she apparently finds no fault with her daughter.
Rather, she says:
“I find it shocking how she can be turfed out. The idea that it was OK to push out a drunk 17-year-old girl on her own into a pub car park,” she said.
“It seems like a real lack of a duty of care. She was so ripe for any kind of predator. It was bad enough what happened, but at least we got her back alive.”
Oh, and her daughter’s friends cop some of the blame, too.
Her two friends left the pub and went to Belfast Tavern.
“I would like to think your friends would look after you and make some attempt to find you,” the young girl’s mother said.
Fair to say, the bar staff were somewhat cavalier.
Southern Area Commander Inspector Malcolm Johnston said he was disappointed in how the security staff behaved.
“I would have expected, and I suspect the owner would have expected, a different response bearing in mind that within 10 metres of the bar there’s a line of taxis.”
Staff could have spoken to the young girl and attempted to contact a friend or even her parents, he said.
“I was briefed that we had three very intoxicated 17-year-olds walk into the premises. How did three 17-year-olds that were grossly intoxicated walk into a licensed premise?”
It’s all very well for Bush Bar beverage operations manager Ben Tolhurst to say staff were “just following what the law states” by evicting intoxicated people from the premises.
More could have been done – and should have been done – in this case.
But here’s another case of a parent finding fault with everyone but the family.
Did they know where the girl was going that night? And with whom? And for what purpose? And have they raised her to recognise right from wrong, including the wrong of lying about your age to get pissed and the wrong of getting legless? And so on…
Alf Grumble 
i Think that the 17 year old girl was obviously a TRY HARD and if she knew she was under age what the hell is she doing clubing and drinking?