The first thing, New Zealand Paedophile, Laken Maree Rose said to the officer arresting her for crimes that would soon make her one of the most prolific female child sex offenders in New Zealand was about her victims.
“They’re young, they’ll get over it.”
The individual receiving such remarks was Detective Sergeant Darryl Brazier, a 40-year veteran of the police force who terminated the five-year period of abuse perpetrated by Rose and her accomplice, Andrew Alan Williams.
The duo was convicted in August of the previous year at the High Court in Rotorua for offences characterised by sentencing judge Justice Matthew Muir as “nearly unprecedented.”
Laken Maree Rose’s sexual offences against minors, in conjunction with previous lover Andrew Alan Williams, have been characterised as unprecedented.
Collectively, they committed over 100 child sexual offences, including the rape of a three-year-old while the kid’s guardian was present in the same residence.
Rose received a sentence of 19 years and nine months of jail, with a minimum non-parole period of seven years and nine months, after pleading guilty to 10 crimes and being convicted of an additional 45 offences in a judge-only trial.
Williams pleaded guilty to 56 crimes and received a sentence of 23 years and five months’ imprisonment, with a minimum non-parole period of nine years and four months.
The couple’s offences affected seven victims, the youngest being three years old, across Waikato, Palmerston North, Dannevirke, and the Bay of Plenty.
In conversation with Stuff, Brazier elaborated beyond Muir’s sentencing comments regarding their offences.
“There’s no precedent.”
He said that, over his four decades in the police, he had encountered females who had been convicted of ‘party to’ sex offending, “but none like this”.
Laken Maree Rose was jailed for 19 years and nine months, with a minimum term of seven years nine months, after being found guilty of 45 charges at a judge alone trial, offending described as unprecedented.
Brazier outlined how the investigation into the pair began with one victim confiding in a friend of their parents. That person told the parents, who then told the police.
He said that set in train a process that involved Oranga Tamariki and interviews with the child.
One week later, Brazier said they “had our offenders identified. We knew they had taken photos of the children”.
Brazier said that was enough for a search warrant of their Cambridge home, though at that stage “we didn’t know the extent of the offending”.
He said the search quickly threw up red flags.
“A couple with no children. They had things in their room. Fairy Princess dresses, underwear with the crotch cut out”.
He said they also found more than 300,000 objectionable videos and photos, which were handed over to the Tauranga child protection team for analysis.
Laken Rose’s partner and co-offender Andrew Alan Williams pleaded guilty to 56 child sex charges and was jailed for 23 years five months, with a minimum term of nine years four months.
Due to the sheer volume of material, that was a process Brazier said “took months”.
“We identified quickly some pretty serious sexual offending.”
Brazier said they were able to identify victims and locations of offending before embarking on another emotionally draining task, telling parents.
“The parents had no idea. But as soon as you name them [Rose and Williams], they know who they are,” he said.
“It becomes clear after a while.”
He said that for many parents, when told this news, the penny can suddenly drop about the cause for behavioural changes they have seen in their children.
He said too that sometimes parents are asked to view sections of the objectionable videos to confirm identification of a victim.
“Very, very difficult for parents,” Brazier said.
“They felt betrayed.”
Parents can feel guilty too, as one parent explained during their victim impact statement at sentencing.
“I feel this massive guilt that I have not been able to protect my child, that is something that will not go away,” they said.
“Taking your child to a rape examination is an experience I wouldn’t wish on any other parent … seeing your child put through that experience shatters you into a thousand pieces.”
Detective Sergeant Darryl Brazier, who led the team that brought Laken Rose and Matthew Williams to justice, said he had never seen similar offending in a 40-year police career.
Brazier said this reaction, while not common, can happen.
“The parent, especially of a young victim, often question themselves around how they could have missed the ‘signs’ and not prevent their child’s exposure to this offending.”
He’s clear though exactly where blame lies: “It’s the offender that did wrong, not them”.
The parent also took aim at Rose for making them endure a trial.
“No-one who was there will ever be able to forget what you forced them to hear and see,” they said.
The betrayal felt by parents was in part due to the couple’s skill at grooming not only the children, but their parents too, something Rose was crucial to.
As Brazier noted, “no parent is going to trust a middle-aged man with a child”.
He said Rose’s gender put people at ease, and “because of her role in the horse scene, she had access to a lot of children”.
On one occasion Rose offered to take a parent out, offering Williams as the child carer.
“He’s good with children,” she would tell people, Brazier said.
He described the pair as “male and female working together for one purpose”.
“She would identify a victim and send him a text message saying she would be good for grooming for him and her to offend against,” he said.
At the couple’s sentencing in the High Court in Rotorua in August last year Judge Matthew Muir described their offending as ‘sickening’ and ‘depraved’.
“This is how despicable and cunning they are. They became so confident in their offending.”
Rose’s key role was also highlighted by Crown prosecutor Anna Pollett.
“She in most cases created the opportunity for Mr Williams to offend … but for Ms Rose Mr Williams would not have been able to offend in the way that he did.”
Brazier was also quick to dismiss defence arguments made for Rose, essentially that her offending was largely the result of threats from Williams.
She described herself as a “reluctant spectator” who had been threatened with death or grievous bodily harm if she failed to cooperate with Williams’ abuse.
He said their relationship may have featured some domestic violence, but “to suggest she was under compulsion, I find farcical”.
“We had videos where she was offending against children while [Williams] was in another town,” he said.
Justice Muir also rejected her defence at sentencing.
“I do not regard Ms Rose’s evidence that in every case her offending was in response to threats or actual physical violence as credible,” he said.
Muir cited evidence from more than 1000 text messages between Williams and Rose.
“There are simply too many references in the text record to Ms Rose becoming sexually aroused as a result of discussions between them about his potential offending,” he said.
Muir said typically their offending began with the development of relationships with victims, something he said was “largely facilitated by Ms Rose”, followed by intimate photography, video, “and ultimately indecent assault, unlawful sexual connection and, on occasions, rape”.
“She knew she was living with a serial paedophile by virtue of his sexual offending,” he said.
The pair met at a 2009 Horse of the Year show when Williams was 42 and Rose 19. They also exploited the horse scene in their search for victims.
Court documents also outlined what Muir described as a “characteristic” text exchange between Rose and Williams.
Rose: “She will be a good groom lol but we want to push for more and I think should start soon”.
Williams: “Yes OK if she starts messaging me then maybe you start putting the idea in her head and I’ll work the other side”.
Muir said that exchange related to a 12-year-old.
Another text exchange between the pair saw Williams say, “be great ages one to four, no talking”.
Rose replied: “Yeah babe that’s the ages I want and really you can just do what ever you want to them”.
Brazier also discussed with Stuff an unusual element in the pair’s downfall.
They were inadvertently tipped off their arrest was pending when one parent texted Rose.
“Do not make contact with us or our children. We are seeking legal advice today,” they said.
“Go to a police station and make a detailed voluntary statement. Save yourself.”
On receipt of these messages, Rose immediately texted Williams.
“We have trouble.”
Brazier said that message arrived approximately a month before police knocked at their door, ample time to dispose of the huge haul of objectionable material the couple had amassed during their offending.
Remarkably, Brazier said that was not unusual.
“These types of criminals like to keep their ‘hard-earned’ memorabilia and souvenirs,” he said.
The University of Waikato senior lecturer Armon Tamatea said that while female child sex offenders are rare, victim surveys suggest there may be more perpetrators than official figures suggest.
That view was backed by University of Canterbury psychology lecturer and sexual offending researcher Dr Jacinta Cording.
She said offenders often develop “compulsive” behaviour.
“They want to collect and grow their collection as large as possible,” she said.
“These could be some form of trophy. It allows them to relive their crimes.”
Brazier has another possible explanation too, citing the words uttered by Williams when he was told he was under arrest.
“You may assess Williams’ mindset by his comment ‘who’s going to believe a child?’”
The parent who delivered the victim impact statement referenced those words at sentencing too.
“To clarify, Mr Williams, everyone believed the children, not you.”
The rarity of female sex offenders is also made clear in Ministry of Justice data on sex offences.
From 2011 to 2020, just one female was convicted in New Zealand for the crime of rape, in 2015.
Over that same period, 1190 males were convicted of rape.
However, “a female can only be convicted of rape as a party to an offence committed by a male”, said Ministry of Justice correspondence that accompanied an Official Information Act request.
Brazier said Rose broke that mould.
“Rose was a principal offender, so she was not only grooming these children, she was participating in their violation.”
The pair were sentenced at the High Court in Rotorua for offending that Justice Matthew Muir said was “almost unprecedented”.
The Ministry letter said that serious sexual offending, when committed by a female, would be charged as sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection.
Rose was found guilty of 10 charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, and guilty of three attempted sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection charges.
In total, her charges spanned three pages of court documents.
The scarcity of data on female sex offenders is also highlighted on the Corrections website, under the heading “Risk factors and sexual re-offending”.
“Empirical data on recidivism of female sexual offenders is virtually non-existent.”
However, a 2001 Canadian study that was cited followed up 61 of 72 women who sexually offended between 1972 and 1998.
“No woman who committed her crime in conjunction with a male confederate re-offended. Every woman who assaulted a stranger and who committed the offence on her own re-offended.”
The rarity of female involvement in child sex offending was also supported by University of Waikato school of psychology senior lecturer Armon Tamatea.
He said that, while international comparative studies mirrored the New Zealand data, with females accounting for around two per cent of offending, that number increased – sometimes to as much as 11.6 per cent – in victim surveys.
“So six times higher than official data.”
“New Zealand prevalence rates vary from one per cent (arrests) to 3.1 per cent (victimisation survey),” he said.
“The low numbers have sometimes been taken as ‘proof’ of overlooking and underreporting these kinds of offences by women, but it should be noted that the definition of sexual offending, and data collections methods, can yield differing figures,” he said.
“Not to mention widespread cultural beliefs that tend to reject the idea that women can be sexually dangerous.”
That view was echoed by Cording.
She said people found child sex offending more jarring from a female perpetrator as it clashed with the notion females are “more trusting and caring”.
“Females can be deviant,” she said.
Cording also said she was unaware of anyone during her research that had committed as many offences as Rose.
She said female sex offenders can “have very similar levels of sexual deviance” and supported the claim Rose’s presence would have made offending easier for Williams.
If you or anyone you know have been affected by the people highlighted in this article, then please report those individuals to the Police on 101 (999 if an emergency) or visit their online resources for further details of the options for reporting a crime. You can also make a report at Crimestoppers should you wish to be completely anonymous. There is help available on our support links page.