Rapist blamed 12-year-old girl for attacking, calling her ‘eager’

A rapist who blamed his young victim for his calculated attack didn’t know the brave girl had activated her phone to record his sickening crimes.

A tradesman father who raped a 12-year-old girl in a suburban Melbourne park blamed his young victim for setting him up and being a “home-wrecker”.

Shahn Lefoe, 31, lied to police, saying he believed the girl was 21 and that she was the “sexually aggressive” one who led him to the dark Point Cook reserve in August 2019.

“She was eager,” he would later claim. “I just couldn’t say no.”

But unbeknown to him, the brave girl had managed to activate her phone to record his sickening crimes, including him telling her: “Didn’t you see me eyeballing you (all night)”.

The carpenter had met his victim for the first time at a gathering at a nearby home that night.

The New Zealand national had only been in Australia for six months, moving to Melbourne with his partner and their two children.

County Court judge Fran Dalziel berated Lefoe for pushing blame on the victim when sentencing him to eight years jail on Thursday.

“Sexual offending against children is deplorable,” Judge Dalziel said.

“You say that she tried to take your pants off and whilst you did not want to go along with the sexual activity, you felt helpless and just had to.

“Your explanation effectively reverses the role of instigator and victim.

“You have a concerning lack of insight into your behaviour.

“You persist in saying that you believed the victim was 21 at the time and state you were set up by the victim and that she took advantage of you.”

New Zealand national Shahn Lefoe has been jailed after a jury found him guilty of raping a 12-year-old girl.

Judge Dalziel added how Lefoe had later revealed he understood his actions are what had found him in court, “however maintained it’s (his victim’s) fault” and that she was a “home-wrecker”.

She said the 21-minute recording “contradicts” his version of events in that she approached him and that he “simply went along with her”.

“The complainant had at some point activated the phone so that it recorded the sound of your interaction,” Her Honour said.

“In the course of this activity you directed the victim as to what to do, and to make noise to indicate she was enjoying it.

“I do not accept your position that the victim was sexually aggressive towards you and that it was she who led you there.”

Any suggestions the young girl was sexually aggressive towards him were “farcical”, she added.

The court heard Lefoe got dressed and disturbingly licked his victim’s face before returning to the house by jumping a back fence, leaving her in the park.

She had to ring the doorbell of the front door to be let back in, with the woman answering the door finding the girl distressed and crying.

The girl did not want to talk about why she was upset, before texting an aunt: “I got raped. Help me.”

She later told a family member at the party what happened and pointed out Lefoe as the perpetrator.

Lefoe always maintained his innocence, saying the sexual encounter was consensual and that he believed the girl to be older.

But in July last year, a jury found him guilty of four counts of sexual penetration with a child under 16 years of age.

Since his arrest, Lefoe has spent 992 days in immigration detention, before being moved into a corrections facility following the verdict.

He is facing deportation on his release.

Judge Dalziel ordered he spend at least 5.5 years of the eight-year jail term before being eligible for parole.