• Denham Harber-Jones, a repeat child sex offender, was sentenced to over three years in prison.
• He pleaded guilty to 12 charges, including unlawful sexual connection with a 13-year-old girl.
• Judge Richard Earwaker ordered Harber-Jones to remain on the Child Sex Offender Register for life.
• WARNING: This article deals with sexual offending against a child and may be distressing.

A 27-year-old repeat child sex offender told a 13-year-old girl he was only 18 when he arranged through social media to meet her for sex.

Denham Harber-Jones has now been sent back to prison – his third custodial sentence for sexual offending in the last 11 years.

Today, in the Napier District Court Judge Richard Earwaker jailed Harber-Jones for just over three years and told him he would be on the Child Sex Offender Register for the rest of his life.

Harber-Jones earlier pleaded guilty to 12 charges.

Five were of unlawful sexual connection with a young person, related to a girl he contacted through Instagram and met twice for sexual acts.

Four were for breaching an extended supervision order and three were for failing to comply with the reporting conditions of his existing sex offender registration.

Crown counsel Lara Marshall said Harber-Jones had already served two custodial sentences.

She said his current sex offender registration was in a category that had a finite end point, and she asked for him to be re-registered.

Defence counsel Eric Forster said Harber-Jones had pleaded guilty at an early stage of proceedings, sparing the victim and her family from further trauma.

Judge Earwaker said Harber-Jones connected with the girl through Instagram in May 2024 and offered her $100 for sexual acts, to which she agreed.

She told him she was 13 and he told her he was 18, which was not true.

Harber-Jones arranged to meet the girl after school. She was still in her school uniform when he picked her up and took her to an orchard, where sexual acts took place in his car.

He and the girl later exchanged intimate photographs on Instagram and four weeks after the first meeting, he collected her again and took her to a rural area, where full sex and other acts took place.

Judge Earwaker said at the time of Harber-Jones’ latest offending he was a registered sex offender who was subject to an extended supervision order.

“None of those protective matters have stopped you from offending,” the judge said.

He jailed Harber-Jones for three years, one month and two weeks.

He noted that Harber-Jones’ current offender registration was due to expire in August 2025.

He told him that his offending was now in a category that would require him to stay on the Child Sex Offender Register for the rest of his life.

Denham-Jones was jailed in 2020for five offences, including two of sexually grooming a minor via Instagram, one of possessing objectionable material – photos of the girl he groomed – one of performing an indecent act on the teenager, and one of blackmailing her.

In 2013, he was sentenced to four years in prison after a sex attack on a 17-year-old girl in a Napier toilet block.

In that case, he was taken to police by his parents after police released a photograph of the person they were looking for, and confessed when he was identified by DNA evidence.

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.

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.