The truth behind the tears: How a caregiver was exposed as a rapist

When an elderly woman began telling her daughter she didn't want to go back to her residential care facility, it appeared she was missing her family home. The truth behind her tears was more disturbing than her daughter could have ever imagined. National crime correspondent Sam Sherwood reports.

Sitting down at a cafe eating a muffin, Eve* looked across at her daughter Sarah* and confided in her what it was that had been troubling her.

It was mid-2024, and it had been a massive couple of years for Eve.

After caring for her sick husband leading up to his death, her own health began to deteriorate and she was diagnosed with vascular dementia, forcing her to sell her three-bedroom property she had called home for 30 years and move into a residential care facility.

At first it appeared that despite the massive overhaul to her life, Eve was settling in okay, aside from not liking some of the food, nor being told when to go to bed.

But then things began to change. Eve, regarded as a stoic woman, would start crying and say she did not want to go back to the care facility.

At first Sarah thought the move had taken on more of a toll than her mother had been willing to admit.

But then while at the cafe, Eve told her that a caregiver at the facility had sexually offended against her.

Sarah was shocked and told the staff she did not want the man going near her mother again.

Weeks later, Sarah got a call from a police officer who had heard about her mother's incident as part of an investigation into allegations the caregiver had sexually offended against another woman.

It was not until Sarah was driving Eve to the police station for her interview that her mother disclosed another detail. The man had actually raped her.

Two years on, that man would be found guilty of raping Eve and two charges of unlawful sexual connection against the other woman.

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On Monday, a suppression order was lifted allowing RNZ to reveal the man's name - Nilushan Jayanga Silva Ginthota Vidhanage. The Christchurch facility involved has been granted permanent name suppression. The facility declined to answer questions from RNZ.

With Vidhanage's suppression no longer in place, RNZ can now reveal the 31-year-old's offending and the impact it has had.

Sarah wants change, and she also wants answers.

"They failed her… she was not safe.

"What happened? How did it fail so badly that he was able to have enough time to hurt two ladies in this care facility?"

The decision

Sarah describes her mother as strong, independent and always supportive of others.

When Eve's husband got sick she was by his side. But once he died her own health began to deteriorate.

Sarah would visit daily to help take care of her, but as her condition got worse it got increasingly harder.

Eve was eventually taken to hospital where she was assessed and it was discovered that she'd had a large number of mini strokes and that she had vascular dementia.

Eve had to sell her family home and move into full-time care.

Sarah says she visited two facilities with her mother.

"She made the decision herself and looked around, saw the rooms... it was hard because she didn't want to do it, but she made the choice that she wanted to go to this one."

In November 2023, Eve moved into the facility.

Sarah says the first few months appeared to be going well, aside from complaints about "spicy food" and being told when to go to bed.

"For a while there, she wanted to stay in her room a little bit more, she didn't want to go and socialise down there, because she wanted to be in her own space, and that was okay, because they didn't mind."

It was mid-2024 when Sarah began noticing her mother seemed less happy.

"She started getting upset and crying, we thought, 'oh, maybe it's really upset her a little bit more', because she normally wasn't like that.

"So to see her getting upset and saying, I don't want to go back to the facility, I started wondering what was going on."

At first, Sarah thought it was because she was missing her husband so she got some photo albums made and put them in her room hoping that might help. But it did not.

"She was really just not her normal self, there was something in it. We also thought it was because of all the things that had happened about selling the house and moving - we were just wondering what was going on."

Sarah kept an eye on her mother. When she went to the facility, she would ask the nurses how her day had been.

Then, one Saturday Sarah took her mother out for their usual shopping trip. While sitting down eating a muffin, Eve told her why she had been so upset.

"She said this man had put his finger in her vagina, and she didn't like it, and he didn't have cream, and there was no need for him to do that."

Sarah asked her mother if she wanted to move to another facility.

"She said 'oh no, he's not going to make me move'."

Sarah then went to the facility and told them what her mother had said and added that she did not want the man going into her mother's room again.

"The nurse I spoke to said 'we will investigate. I have to take this to management, because this is serious, and we will look into it'."

In the days that followed, Sarah would ask her mother if the man had returned, and she would say he had not.

"I was just waiting to see if it settled down, whether he was there, I was just watching because I'd never met him so I didn't know who he was and they [the facility] wouldn't tell me his name."

The phone call

About two weeks later, Sarah received a call from an unknown number. She was in a meeting so missed the call, but when she got out of it she listened to the voice message which was from a police officer who wanted to talk to her about her mother.

When she called back, the officer told her that another person had made a complaint that the man had sexually offended against her, and police were investigating.

The officer heard about Eve from a staff member while he was at the facility making inquiries.

Sarah told the police officer what her mother had told her at the coffee shop.

She then had to take Eve to the police station to be interviewed.

While driving there, Sarah says she told her mother all she had to do was tell the police the truth.

"It was then that she said 'Ah, well I better say this'..."

Eve then disclosed she had been raped.

"I was shocked, and I thought, 'Oh my god, this is serious'... I put my hand on her leg, and I said, 'Thank you for telling me… But you must tell the police officer when we get to the police station, you must tell them everything'.

"She said 'I will, I will tell them everything'."

Sarah asked her mother why she had not told her earlier. Her answer came as no surprise.

"I didn't want to upset you."

Sarah says she was heartbroken when her mother told her that she had been raped and at first blamed herself.

"I said to someone 'I just feel like I've just put her in the worst place possible… I've done this horrific thing of choosing this place that I thought was safe'."

She ended up seeing a counsellor who helped reassure her that what happened was not her fault.

The trial

Vidhanage was charged with raping Eve as well as two charges of unlawful sexual connection in relation to the other woman.

It took nearly two years for the case to be heard in the Christchurch District Court in March, in a judge-alone trial in front of Judge Jane Farish.

Judge Farish's judgment, released to RNZ, details the case against Vidhanage.

Vidhanage was employed as a caregiver at the facility in 2022 and was on a rostered night shift which went from 11pm to 8am.

His role meant that sometimes he was involved in toileting the residents, helping them to move in their beds, assisting them after they had toileted to make sure that they were clean.

The judgment says that Eve's allegation was that sometime between 1 April and 1 July 2024, she rang the bell in her room in the early hours of the morning as she needed assistance to get out of bed and go to the toilet.

"She described a tall man with a very black thick beard, dark hair and dark skin coming to assist."

She said that after she had been to the bathroom Vidhanage raped her.

She did not know who the man was, but had heard his name was Jay.

The judgment says that Sarah spoke to staff at the facility on at least two occasions to ensure Vidhanage would not go into her mother's room to administer care.

One staffer spoke to Vidhanage after they were informed by other nursing staff of the complaint.

"He replied that he had applied moisturiser to the body of the complainant but not to her genital area."

He was told by the staffer that he was not to go back to offer care to Eve.

The other complainant was receiving hospital level care on an ACC transition from Christchurch Public Hospital.

The judgment says the incident happened on the only night Vidhanage was on duty while the woman was at the facility.

She said Vidhanage entered the room and shut the door. The room was dark, but there was light coming from the ensuite bathroom.

She described Vidhanage as "extremely polite and appeared professional".

"He said that he was there and he needed to examine her and began by pressing on her neck and her shoulder area, and then on the front of her chest.

"He said that if she had any pain, she should let him know."

He then began pressing on her ribs which was "extremely painful" the judgment says as she had broken ribs.

He then said he needed to do an internal examination and sexually assaulted her.

The woman couldn't recall Vidhanage saying anything about what he found, or why the internal examination was necessary, but the judgment says he went to "some effort to purport to be conducting a medical examination".

Vidhanage then left the room.

The following day she told her family what had happened and they raised concerns with the manager.

The woman later picked out Vidhanage from a series of photos of the staff who had been on the night shift when she was there.

The manager spoke with Vidhanage the following day, and he was formally stood down.

'No medical training'

Vidhanage gave evidence at his trial.

Judge Farish said his evidence was not "plausible, neither credible nor reliable".

The judgment says Vidhanage said he was "medically competent", but that he was actually only "medication competent", meaning he could sign off as a second person when opiates were prescribed or given to the residents during the night shifts.

He acknowledged in court he had no medical training and it was not part of his role to be medically examining any resident.

"He acknowledged that he had touched [the second complainant] on her shoulders and on her chest area. He said that he had done this because she had indicated that she was in pain."

He also said he had no understanding of why she was there but had noticed that she had injuries.

Judge Farish said Vidhanage's explanation for why he proceeded to touch and examine the second complainant "defies common sense and logic".

"He has no medical training, he had no idea of the injuries that [she] had suffered, hence why he was pressing on her ribs, not being aware that she had broken ribs. There was no information that he could obtain from proceeding to prod her body as he did.

"More importantly, she had not complained of any pain and that is consistent with the nursing notes taken throughout the night by other caregivers and nurses."

Vidhanage did accept under cross-examination during his trial that it was "highly unusual" that two women within the same unit, independent of each other, would make similar allegations.

In relation to Eve, Vidhanage said any care he provided to her was appropriate and that he had not acted inappropriately towards her.

Judge Farish said it was unclear from the evidence given the "lack of contemporaneous notetaking" by staff at the facility as to when a complaint was made about the initial offending.

She found Vidhanage guilty of all of the charges.

Sarah says she was overcome with relief for her mother when she heard the verdicts.

"She's been heard… even though she's a very ill lady, her voice has been heard and the justice system has won."

'They were vulnerable'

Vidhanage was sentenced by Judge Farish in the Christchurch District Court in May.

Sarah wrote a victim impact statement which was read in court.

In her statement, Sarah said her mother trusted that she would be safe, respected and looked after with dignity.

"Instead that trust was horribly broken by you.

"You were employed as a caregiver, a role that carries responsibility, compassion and integrity. Instead of honouring that role, you chose to prey on someone vulnerable, my mum, and you abused that position in the most unacceptable and devastating way."

Crown prosecutor Courtney Martyn told the court that aside from sexual offending by family members against other family members it was difficult to imagine a "more serious breach of trust".

Vidhanage's lawyer Thomas Harré acknowledged there had been "real harm" caused by his client's offending. That harm had also extended to his family, Harré said.

He said that once Vidhanage served his time behind bars he would be deported to Sri Lanka, leaving his in-laws "without any realistic prospect of seeing him" while also putting his wife in a "rather difficult situation".

Judge Farish said that Vidhanage had also subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of intimidation which related to him "accosting or approaching" an 11-year-old girl after she had left school.

"You stopped your car, you asked her whether she wanted a cigarette, she declined. You then asked her whether she wanted a ride in your car she declined, and then you forcefully directed her to get in the car.

"At that point, she ran away very wisely and waited until you had left. And then as she was returning home she saw your vehicle, very courageously and bravely took down the number plate, went straight home and told her mother and you were subsequently apprehended."

Judge Farish said Vidhanage would be deported after serving one-third of his sentence.

She said Vidhanage continued to deny the offending, therefore she could not give him any credit for remorse.

Judge Farish said there were several aggravating features of Vidhanage's offending, including the victims' vulnerability.

"They were vulnerable, not only because of the position they were in, in the early hours of the morning in a facility where they should have felt entitled to be safe, but they had both physical and mental vulnerabilities. They were incredibly fragile."

There was also a significant breach of trust.

"You are there to provide cares because they can no longer do that for themselves, and you abuse that trust, and that has caused huge issues in relation to that feeling of trust that families have when they place their elderly loved ones into care."

Judge Farish said Vidhanage moved to New Zealand from Sri Lanka in 2019 when he was 25 to pursue his education and employment.

She jailed Vidhanage for 10 years and six months.

'They failed her'

Sarah wanted the name of the facility to be published in case it helped any other victims be identified. She also wants them to be held accountable.

At sentencing, Judge Farish said that Sarah's communication with the facility after she initially complained "didn't really trigger any alarm bells at that stage for the [facility], although you were told you were not to go into her room again, you were not to look after her".

Sarah says the facility failed her mother and has many unanswered questions.

"What happened? How did it fail so badly that he was able to have enough time to hurt two ladies in this care facility?

"This is one bad apple that's gone into a barrel of lots of caregivers that are lovely there … and it's all about that bad apple, but it's the management that have to look into their procedures, look into the reason, how come he slipped through their system - are they checking properly, are they actually doing background checks from where they've come from, are they giving him a trial, seeing what he's like?… I want to know why the system broke down there."

Sarah also wants changes made at a national level to ensure "the right people are caring for our elderly" and she wants more to be done to help identify if residents are being sexually assaulted.

She also wants the facility to give Eve compensation for what happened. She says the family have asked for compensation, but that so far the facility has said no.

'She couldn't defend herself'

It's been just over two and a half years since Eve first moved into the facility, where she still resides.

Sarah says Eve doesn't call it home, she still misses the place she knew as home. The dementia is taking its toll, and she can often be heard saying she wants to be with her husband.

"She keeps saying 'can't find him'."

Sarah says she's never asked her more about the offending as she doesn't want to upset her. She also hasn't told her about Vidhanage's offending against the young girl.

But Eve does know that Vidhanage is behind bars.

"She's happy about that, she has a little bit of a smile."

It's clear though that what happened to her had a devastating impact.

"It broke her," Sarah says.

Sarah says she's incredibly grateful to police, and makes particular mention of Detective Tone Kopelani.

"They were so kind and just so supportive of [Eve]... they were so respectful."

In a statement to RNZ, Kopelani said his thoughts were with the victims and their families.

"This sort of offending is very distressing for all those concerned, so it is pleasing to have someone held to account in the courts.

"The case involved vulnerable victims, and it was important to ensure they were properly supported, and their families were involved."

He said police thanked the care facility for their assistance in terms of communicating with residents' family members as part of police inquiries.

"To date, we do not believe there are any more victims from the facility, however we would ask anyone who does have concerns about potential criminal behaviour in respect of this matter to come forward to Police."

Going forward the main thing Sarah wants is for Eve to be comfortable with the time she has left. Something she should've always been entitled to.

Back in November they were told Eve had only days to live, but has been able to beat those odds and has even met a great-grandchild.

"Each day is a blessing," Sarah says.

Sitting in her living room pondering the best way to describe the last couple of years, Sarah chooses not to focus on the actions of the man responsible for all the harm.

Instead, she thinks about the women at the centre of it all.

"These women should be very proud of themselves.

"It's their courage. They knew that they weren't going to let him get away with it, and that he wasn't going to win. He might have done some horrible things to their bodies, but he didn't get their minds."

*Not their real names

Where to get help

NZ Police.

Rape Crisis: 0800 88 33 00.

Rape Prevention Education.

Empowerment Trust.

HELP (Auckland): 09 623 1700, (Wellington): 04 801 6655.

Safe to talk: 0800 044 334.

Tautoko Tāne Male Survivors Aotearoa.

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) 022 344 0496.