This week was not a great week to be a woman in New Zealand, or to be raising young women in New Zealand.

On Monday night, Joseph Parker, one of a group of young men investigated relating to alleged sexual offences spoke to a TV channel five years after The Roast Busters scandal exploded.

Many of his survivors were watching as he showed very little remorse beyond how his reprehensible actions had affected his own attempts to forge a career in music. His rhetoric was filled with I, me, my – little to no regard for how his victims had been affected, continue to be affected.

First broken by 3 News in November 2013, the Roast Busters scandal centred around allegations a group of young Auckland men had been setting out to intoxicate underage girls at parties to engage them in unlawful sexual acts. The group would then boast about their conquests online, sometimes identifying the women involved. The revelations dominated local news cycles for weeks and were covered around the world.

A fortnight after the controversy erupted, a petition signed by 111,000 New Zealanders was presented to parliament, urging then prime minister John Key to ensure justice for the many young women who were victimised by Roast Busters. “It’s entirely unacceptable that our society would let gang rapists go free for years,” the petition read, “while multiple young women have approached the police seeking justice for their rapes.” In cities across New Zealand, thousands marched against rape and victim-blaming culture.

The police opened an investigation, called Operation Clover, that ran for over a year, identifying 35 young men as persons of interest and more than 100 young women as possible victims.

One of those women was Laura. She was watching Monday night, and she spoke to media site The Spinoff, a distressing tale of assault and manipulation and shame and anger and terror and lifetime scars.

“It wasn’t just a night I can forget. I can’t take away my memory, I can’t take away the most terrifying thing that’s ever happened to me.” She describes it as like a horror film that constantly replays in her memories and her dreams, one that she fears she will never be able to turn off. “That’s what I want people to know – it’s not just a thing you tell the police and then it’s finished. It’s a part of my life now.”

“When the story is all done, when the comments section has dried up, I’m still living it.”

It is true, as Joseph Parker pointed out, that he has never been convicted of a crime, but that seems to be more a consequence of poor police procedure and flawed methodology rather than because he was innocent. His total inability to feel an ounce of remorse for the number of lives he and his mates have scarred is gobsmacking, And  if he hasn’t learned anything, then how far have we come in the last few years, how much has NZ learned about rape culture and consent. How much faith can our young women have that predators will not only be held accountable for their crimes but will have to face some kind of justice.

I get what Newshub were trying to do – in giving Parker oxygen, they’ve achieved the TV equiuvalent of trolling. But at what cost to the Roastbusters survivors? And what cost to all our young women?