A Dunedin builder serving a term of nearly 15 years' jail for sexually abusing his stepdaughter wants his convictions quashed.
The 48-year-old was found guilty of eight sex charges at a Dunedin District Court jury trial and has been behind bars since sentencing in July last year.
His case came before the Court of Appeal in Dunedin this week, where his counsel, Len Andersen, argued the verdicts were unsafe.
At trial, the court heard how the defendant first targeted his stepdaughter in 2010 in the early hours after her 11th birthday.
He snuck into her room and raped her while telling her to shut up.
The girl told the jury how she disposed of the soiled bedsheets the next day.
"You relentlessly carried out your offending in the victim's home, at times when you were alone with her, at times when everyone else was asleep,'' Judge Kevin Phillips said at sentencing.
"[The victim] is extremely damaged, if not in fact destroyed.''
Mr Andersen said one of the key issues on appeal was relationship evidence that the jury heard, which cast the defendant in a negative light.
"He was portrayed as a nasty, violent man,'' Mr Andersen said.
"No-one was going to believe his denial of the offending.''
The problem was the evidence of violence in the household was not related to the sexual allegations and it was likely it coloured the jury's view of the man in the dock.
"It creates such a bad impression, especially when it's one person's word against another,'' Mr Andersen said.
Added to that was the fact Judge Phillips did not address the evidence, and how the jurors should treat it, in his summing up.
Crown counsel Mark Lillico accepted the judge erred in avoiding the relationship evidence but he argued it was right that the jury heard it.
The complainant said she had not made the allegations earlier because she did not want to break her mother's heart.
Mr Andersen pointed out, it was not the threat of violence that held her back.
However, Mr Lillico underscored other parts of her testimony in which the complainant did say she was scared of what her stepfather could do.
The defendant, who gave evidence at this week's hearing, claimed that he wanted to call certain witnesses at trial but was overruled by his lawyer, Andrew Dawson.
Mr Lillico called the assertions "absolute nonsense'' and pointed to file notes Mr Dawson had made referencing joint decisions he and his client had made about how to approach the case.
"Defendant agrees and understands,'' he wrote.
Mr Andersen told the Court of Appeal his client's sister should have been called as a defence witness because she would have rebutted important parts of the Crown case.
He was also critical of the choice of medical professional who gave evidence about the defendant's health complaints.
The court reserved its decision.
