A Dunedin man jailed for 15 years for sexually abusing his stepdaughter has failed to have his convictions overturned.
The 48-year-old's case came before the Court of Appeal when it sat in Dunedin in May, following a jury's guilty verdicts on eight sex charges last year.
The first rape took place in the victim's bedroom following her 11th birthday in 2010 and the court heard the attacks continued for five years.
The girl was subjected to several instances of forced oral sex as well as groping and she said the sex acts were sometimes accompanied by additional physical violence, including choking and punching her.
The allegations arose a few months after the defendant broke up with the victim's mother.
''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.''
On appeal, counsel Len Andersen argued that evidence about the environment in the household unfairly prejudiced the jury.
Witnesses described the defendant as a dominating and controlling figure prone to angry outbursts, abusive language and, on occasion, violence.
Justice Christine French - along with Justices Forrie Miller and Graham Lang - said the details were essential background for the jury.
''To have excluded this evidence would in our view have been wrong and have resulted in the jury being presented with a sanitised and quite misleading picture of the household,'' she said.
Justice French said the trial judge, in summing up, should have explained why the evidence had been called but said the absence of such a direction did not create a miscarriage of justice.
Criticism of the trial lawyer, Andrew Dawson, was heard at appeal. The defendant claimed his counsel had overruled him and failed to call his sister and former GP as witnesses, as instructed.
Mr Dawson denied that suggestion and the judgement vindicated him.
''We prefer the evidence of Mr Dawson, supported as it is by detailed and at times lengthy file notes recording the discussions with [the defendant] about the defence evidence,'' Justice French said.
Other criticisms of his performance at trial were dismissed as ''entirely speculative''.
''[The] trial strategy was to highlight the significant inconsistencies in [the victim's] evidence and to suggest she was lying because she was depressed, had made the allegations to get attention and had then backed herself into a corner,'' Justice French said. Other approaches suggested by Mr Andersen would not have complemented that approach.
''In our view, none of the grounds of appeal, whether viewed individually or collectively, warrants appellate intervention,'' Justice French said.
