Golriz Ghahraman’s political career had just gone down in flames and three separate shoplifting investigations were ongoing when she sat down with the Scotties Boutique owner and apologised for stealing $7800 worth of clothing from the Ponsonby store.

Marilyn Sainty, a well-known fashion designer and New Zealand Order of Merit member, had indicated she wanted to accept the apology face-to-face to show her understanding and support for the former Green Party standout.

In a gesture described as generous and a bit confusing, Sainty declined offers from Ghahraman during the closed-door meeting last January to return some of the stolen items or to pay for them, saying police had advised her not to. She suggested Ghahraman keep the goods.

“Marilyn then wanted to say that she had her support, she thought she had done a wonderful job in Parliament but regrettably police were involved,” according to court documents that were recently released to the Herald.

“Golriz said she did not wish to shy away from any punishment or prosecution. She accepted her wrongdoing and she wanted to apologise.”

The meeting ended on good terms: “Marilyn and Golriz had a hug.”

The previously unreleased notes from that meeting were one of more than a dozen documents used by Auckland District Court Judge June Jelas as she sentenced Ghahraman last month. The former MP was denied a discharge without conviction and ordered to pay $1860 in fines and court costs. Despite the early meeting with Sainty, she has also since then paid for or returned all stolen items.

The documents included printouts of violent social media threats against Ghahraman and numerous letters of support, including from former Greens MP Denise Roche and former Criminal Bar Association president Anthony Bouchier.

“I join the many people who have said that it was extremely out of character for Golriz to shoplift. It was,” Roche wrote in her letter.

“In my time in Parliament, I dealt with misogyny and racist hatred as a result of the campaign I was running to increase the refugee quota which shocked me to my core. I am an older white woman of Māori and Pākehā heritage, though, and my time in Parliament was before the Covid-19 pandemic, which seems to have unleashed a deluge of despicable social media behaviour that remains unchecked. I did not experience the scale of unremitting vitriol that Golriz did.”

But the one document Judge Jelas referred to repeatedly throughout the hearing last month was Ghahraman’s 10-page affidavit explaining her actions in her own words.

What follows are excerpts from the previously unpublished statement. Ghahraman did not object to a request that the court release the affidavit to the media.

Safety, health fears

Ghahraman said she could best describe the offending by recounting “the background and the lead up to where I was mentally in 2024″.

“I have received abuse and serious threats of sexual and physical violence since I announced my candidacy for parliament in January 2017, escalating over time after I was elected as a Member of Parliament in October that year. The threats were such an endemic aspect of my life in politics that I raised the issue in my ‘maiden speech’ to the House, noting that the barrage of abuse, including at that time threats of gun violence, were aimed at me due to my ethnic background and refugee status. I was at that time the first and only refugee to be elected to our House of Representatives.

“In February 2018, just four months after being elected, I experienced my first multiple sclerosis attack. This took the form of almost completely losing sight in my left eye due to optic neuritis, as my optic nerve had worn away. I also felt numbness in my limbs, which has been an ongoing symptom, although my sight restored in time. I am aware that although the causes of this autoimmune disorder are not clear, stress and trauma can bring on attacks.

Former Green Party of Aotearoa MP Golriz Ghahraman stands in the dock at Auckland District Court while pleading guilty to shoplifting at her first court appearance. Photo / Dean Purcell

“After the March 15th terror attack in 2019, I became more aware of the seriousness of the threats and abuse I was receiving. Those threats also escalated in the wake of that terror attack and I became the only MP in our Parliament to require police or security escort other than the Prime Minister.

“I think this was the period when I began to feel the palpable fear of violence in my daily life. This felt like a perpetual anxiety, and visceral sense of fear in public spaces, in particular work spaces.

“Looking back, I was less willing to acknowledge the impacts of this trauma, such as chronic insomnia, anxiety, feelings of worthlessness, fear and an inability to regulate those emotions. It became more difficult for me to balance the demands of my work, multiple sclerosis symptoms, and what I now know were symptoms of complex PTSD.

“I felt shame for what I saw as flaws in myself, and rarely allowed myself to seek help or support, always believing that threats of harm were part of being a so-called ‘first’ in any field.”

Traumatic background

“I felt extremely humbled and honoured to hold portfolios and support communities who had experienced some of my own background experiences. I felt strongly about being a loud and staunch voice for their rights and interests. Often this happened in an environment where those issues and voices had never been raised.

“For me, engaging with that work often brought feelings of distress and emotional flashbacks of my own childhood in war, the violence of life in Iran and my family’s difficult early years after we became refugees.

“I felt that trauma arise most where I was dealing with issues of war, peace, refugee and asylum seeker rights, and ethnic community issues. Those were issues where community engagement meant listening to others’ trauma, emotional meetings where constituents were extremely distressed or crying, and listening to stories of social violence not unlike what I had witnessed or experienced.

“The retraumatisation I felt occurred by way of affecting my ability to sleep, feelings of helplessness, shame, and grief which I now know presented as depression.”

Unhealthy outlet

By the end of 2023, when the shoplifting occurred, Ghahraman said the threats and trauma attached to her job as MP were “compounded by the demands of the election year”.

“I would describe what I was feeling in those months as extreme distress, helplessness, and anxiety which grew to a level that felt scary. Though I was more and more aware that something felt very wrong and that I was not coping well mentally, I felt ashamed of these feelings.

“I was focused on appearing externally okay in order to do my job, and therefore I was not addressing what I was feeling ...

“My internal monologue was often focused on how I ‘deserved to be found out’ for being weak or not as strong as others believed me to be.

“Even now I cannot fully comprehend or explain why I shoplifted the items I did. I know I did not keep or wear the items I shoplifted, not really checking things like size or price or style, some would never have fit me or were items I would never ever wear or use.

“I know that the feelings I had while taking the items were not in any way positive. It was a heightened feeling of shame and proof of what I believed by then was my inherent wrongfulness.

“If I tried to explain it, I would say that I had started to feel a nothingness and the terror and fear that I would experience after shoplifting made me feel something, even if the feelings were negative.

“These feelings and the offending behaviour also felt consistent with my feeling that I did not deserve the success and life I had built, and felt I deserved to lose.

“This is very hard to describe and I also have some cloudy memory around it so I can only continue to try to take responsibility and understand it as I continue with trauma-focused therapy. I’m grateful for my diagnoses and the clarity these have given me about my mental health. I know that addressing the underlying causes of my offending is a journey and takes hard work, but I feel far more at peace, knowing that work has now begun.”

Media fallout

Ghahraman told the judge in her affidavit that she feels “deep shame and regret as a result of what I have done”. She recalled immediately getting help for her mental health, issuing a statement taking full responsibility and resigning from politics before she knew police were involved.

She also focused on how she felt victimised by the intense interest in what had occurred.

“The media attention on me continued for several weeks after I had issued a statement and resigned from public life. The most upsetting aspect of this was the large contingent of media who camped outside my private home with cameras ready to record my every move while I was in the most difficult depths of mental health crisis.

“During those weeks, media were outside my house from around 8am till late afternoon. Though I tried to avoid going outside, I could see them from security cameras installed by Parliamentary Security to address threats against me, and because neighbours began to monitor the media’s movements and text me to let me know I could leave or finally come home. Neighbours also began to offer their homes to get a change of scene, which I could access through my back fence, grocery runs, and approached media to ask that they leave our street.

“This was an incredibly isolating experience. It was to the point I had to remain inside at the back end of my home for entire days with the windows and curtains shut to avoid being photographed. They would intermittently enter my front gate and knocked on my front door waiting for several minutes for me to appear, and took photos of my personal packages, like wine and flowers sent by friends. I went away for one or two nights at a time to get some peace, but being away from home was also stressful in itself. As this was my home, it felt incredibly intrusive and unsettling. I felt like I had nowhere safe to go.

A man acting as security for Golriz Ghahraman shines a torch into the cameras of photographers after one of her court appearances. Photo / Dean Purcell

“This continued for around three weeks, even after I had accepted responsibility and resigned from my position in Parliament.”

During the sentencing hearing last month, Judge Jelas sympathised with Ghahraman’s description of the media interest. However, a Herald reporter who went to the residence seeking comment on several occasions in January saw no evidence of a long-term media encampment to the extent described by the defendant.

Ghahraman’s affidavit concluded:

“This has been the worst period of my life, and I will forever feel its lasting impact. I take full responsibility for the offending and wish only to make amends and move forward with my life.”

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.