Australian refused permission to stay

Press, 2 December 1987, Page 33

Australian refused permission to stay

PA Wellington An Australian with rape convictions has been refused permission to stay in New Zealand. Peter John Causer appealed against a deportation order made by the Minister of Immigration on September 24 last year. The appeal was heard by the Deportation Review Tribunal, chaired by Dr J. Priestley.

The order followed Causer’s conviction on two counts of rape, one of abduction and one of assault, all arising out of the same incident. He was sentenced to five years jail on the rape charges. Giving the decision, Dr Priestley said the tribunal only had the jurisdiction to quash a deportation if

it was satisfied deportation would be unduly harsh or unjust. In this case it was not satisfied of this.

The applicant was an Australian, aged 29. He had lived in New Zealand for four years and five months.

He was qualified as a tradesman rigger. He had no dependants, but was engaged to a New Zealand girl he had met in Australia. The couple lived together until Causer’s imprisonment in April, 1985. Dr Priestley said the Crown’s case against Causer disclosed disgraceful behaviour. It involved him and two others entering a flat where a couple were asleep.

The man was dragged into the hallway and assaulted. The woman was raped by Causer in a bedroom. When she tried to leave the flat, she was dragged into his vehicle, driven to his home and raped a second time. The main ground of the appeal was that if Causer was deported, his financee would follow him and be separated from her family, which was a closeknit one. Her family was also supportive of Causer.

While the tribunal accepted that being forced to live in Australia, away from her family, would be hard for his fiancee, it did not think that it would be unduly harsh. She had lived there for at least three years before.