• Earl William Opetaia was convicted in 2021 of abusing five boys in his care through CYFS, but the Court of Appeal secretly quashed the convictions last year. 
• With a retrial set for July, the charges have now been dropped. 
• He remains convicted for the sexual violation of a 14-year-old, to which he pleaded guilty in 2018. 

A former Child, Youth and Family Services contractor sentenced to prison four years ago for the alleged abuse of five boys in his care has had his charges dropped following a Court of Appeal victory. 

But he remains convicted of a separate case involving the sexual violation of a 14-year-old. 

Earl William Opetaia returned to the High Court at Auckland today as Justice Mathew Downs officially dismissed the charges. 

“Following consultation with the five complainants, [the Crown] does not wish to proceed,” the judge said of a retrial, which had been planned for July. “Your charges are at an end and I vacate that trial.” 

The Court of Appeal had quashed Opetaia‘s convictions in March and ordered a new trial but the media was barred from reporting the decision until the final disposition of Opetaia’s newly reopened case. 

During a highly publicised trial in 2021, a jury found him guilty of 21 charges: 15 involving sexual abuse of five boys and three counts each of threatening to kill and supplying cannabis to minors. The alleged offences spanned from 2003 to 2006. 

He was acquitted of four other sexual abuse charges and one count of supplying methamphetamine. Multiple other charges were dropped by prosecutors at the start of the trial. 

“No child deserves to be treated the way he was treated by you,” Justice Ian Gault later said of one of the complainants as he ordered a sentence of 10 years and two months' imprisonment. 

All of the “victims were prevented from having a safe and secure home in a time of particular need”, the judge said, noting one complainant said in his victim impact statement the offending had “ruined” him. 

“You represented yourself to CYFS as a responsible caregiver, but breached the trust put in you and abused your position to offend.” 

Opetaia had served as a caregiver between 2001 and 2006, interacting with roughly 150 boys during that period. They stayed at his West Auckland residence, which also served as a boxing gym. 

His legal woes began in 2017, when a complainant said he had been abused by Opetaia at age 14 in 2014. Opetaia pleaded guilty in 2018 and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. That conviction still stands. 

The outcry prompted police to proactively investigate Opetaia’s time as a caregiver. They spoke to multiple boys, none of whom had laid complaints about him previously. 

“A number of them were in prison when spoken to and some had been in prison together,” the Court of Appeal noted in its 53-page decision last year. “It seems police told at least some of them that there was the possibility of them receiving compensation from ACC for any abuse suffered at the hands of Mr O.” 

On appeal, Opetaia’s lawyers suggested there were too many irregularities at the trial, leading to an overall miscarriage of justice. 

Among other things, they argued the jury was improperly prejudiced by evidence suggesting he had also abused two boys in the 1970s and early 1980s and by an opening address in which the Crown mentioned two other accusers who did not end up giving evidence because they could not be found. 

“The net effect of these… matters is that the jury was aware of further alleged offending by Mr O against four other boys, separated in time and circumstance,” the Court of Appeal determined. 

“Absent the evidence of [the witness describing 1970s and ’80s abuse], the Crown would not have been able to submit to the jury that Mr O had been offending in the same way all his life. Moreover, in the wider circumstances here — including the Crown case that Mr O had threatened to kill other of the complainants if they disclosed what had occurred — there was also a real and related risk that the jury may have speculated about why [the two accusers mentioning in the Crown opening] did not give evidence. No warning was given about that." 

The Court of Appeal concluded: “There is a reasonable possibility that another verdict would have been reached had those things (in combination) not occurred”. 

Opetaia‘s lawyers also argued the court should not have allowed jurors to see a police interview with one accuser who had died before trial. He was in a mental health facility at the time of the interview and there were issues raised by the defence regarding his reliability as a witness due to dishonesty offences in his past and a potential financial compensation motive. 

The Crown had submitted an expert report concluding the sexual abuse allegation was unlikely to be a delusion. Although the complainant had been treated for a psychotic disorder, he appeared well at the time of the interview, the report stated. 

“In our view, the judge did not err in the admitting the hearsay evidence,” the appellate panel decided. 

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand. 

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SEXUAL HARM 

Where to get help:
If it's an emergency and you feel that you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
If you've ever experienced sexual assault or abuse and need to talk to someone, contact Safe to Talk confidentially, any time 24/7:
• Call 0800 044 334
• Text 4334
• Email [email protected]
• For more info or to web chat visit safetotalk.nz
Alternatively contact your local police station - click here for a list.
If you have been sexually assaulted, remember it's not your fault.