• A registered sex offender was jailed for abusing a 6-year-old girl after being acquitted of indecency with a dog.
• Judge Brooke Gibson emphasised the musician’s threat to young girls.
• The offender, whose identity remains suppressed pending appeal, has a history of sexual offences since 1981.

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT

A registered sex offender whose crimes have spanned nearly 45 years was recently acquitted of trying to have sex with a friend’s dog at a popular West Auckland park.

But, just weeks later he returned to another courtroom – this time to be jailed for the sexual abuse of a 6-year-old girl.

At the man’s sentencing this week in Auckland District Court, Judge Brooke Gibson said it was important for his identity to be revealed for the safety of the community.

“I consider you to be a real threat to young girls,” the judge said of the musician, who has frequently performed at events attended by children.

“You are a serial predator, as your history indicates.”

Despite the judge’s strongly worded sentiments, the man cannot yet be named as he mulls an appeal.

A jury found him guilty in February of one count of indecency with a child under 12, which carries a punishment of up to 10 years’ imprisonment.

He was ordered last week to serve two years’ imprisonment, with a stark warning from the judge that he may be a good candidate for preventive detention in the future if he continues to offend. Preventive detention is a rare sentence without an end date, intended for the nation’s worst recidivist offenders.

“You’re clearly an experienced and long-term sexual offender,” the judge said.

‘Pretty far-fetched’

The defendant was first arrested in 1981 for two counts of doing an indecent act in a public place, followed by convictions for indecent acts on young girls in 2001, 2009 and 2018. His 2001 arrest also included an objectionable publication charge.

The North Shore resident, now aged in his 60s, came to the attention of police again in 2022 after a fellow dog walker said the man had been caught in a compromising position with a close friend’s 11-year-old pet Dobermann.

The defendant didn’t deny that he was seen clutching the dog with his erect penis exposed one afternoon while at Glasgow Park in Waimauku, an area popular with dog walkers. But he insisted it was all a misunderstanding.

North Shore District Court Judge Grant Fraser outlined the allegation and the defence on February 28, when he issued his reserved decision acquitting the defendant of indecency with an animal following a brief judge-alone trial.

The defendant said he had agreed to take his friend’s two pets to a dog-walking group at 4pm that day but was running late so didn’t stop to relieve himself at her house even though he had to urinate. The walk was supposed to be about an hour and he thought he could wait, but it was delayed by lengthy introductions as about 30 dogs and their owners stood in a circle at the start of the trail, he said.

Once the walk started, the man said he decided that rather than hanging back from the group and using the park’s public toilets he would walk ahead by several minutes and urinate outside in a secluded spot.

The defendant testified that he had taken sertraline, an anti-anxiety drug more commonly known by the brand name Zoloft, since 2017. As a side effect of the drug, he said, he experienced a loss of libido and erectile dysfunction.

“[He] said he had no interest in sex,” Judge Fraser recounted.

But the man claimed he would still sometimes get an erection in a non-sexual way, especially when he had a full bladder. That was the case that afternoon, he claimed.

“He said he had only just started [urinating] when [the Dobermann] growled and approached him,” the judge said. “He felt exposed.”

The defendant said he then grabbed the dog by the collar with his right hand and got down on one knee, trying to steady the canine, while trying without much luck to pull up the zipper of his jeans with his left hand.

“He said that he heard voices on the path and when he realised people were coming he panicked,” the judge said. “Once he zipped himself up, he stood up.”

The defendant was spotted with his pants down at Glasgow Park in Waimauku, West Auckland, in June 2022. Photo / Google

The woman who spotted him as she came over the crest of a hill was a fellow dog walker and another friend of the dog’s owner.

“She said she had a clear view to what happened,” the judge noted, pointing out that she estimated she was about 10m away. “She reiterated that [the defendant] was leaning over the back of the dog as the group was approaching.”

She was disgusted, the judge said.

“Did you see that?” she asked a man who had been walking beside her.

But the other walker, who estimated while in the witness box that they were actually about 50m away, hadn’t seen anything untoward, the judge noted. He acknowledged he hadn’t been paying close attention.

The woman contacted police after alerting the dog’s owner later that day.

The defendant acknowledged at trial that the woman might have seen his erection but insisted he had not stood up to face her while exposed and he hadn’t been bent over the dog.

“He ardently denied that was the case,” the judge said of suggestions he was trying to sodomise the dog at the time. “He said it was pretty far-fetched to suggest he would have sex with a dog ... knowing a full group of dog walkers were behind him.”

Judge Grant Fraser, photographed at Napier District Court in 2011. Photo / Duncan Brown

In announcing his decision, Judge Fraser said people’s perceptions can sometimes be mistaken. He noted the discrepancies in the accounts of the two other dog walkers, including their distance estimates.

He noted the Dobermann’s owner had seen no changes in the dog’s behaviour in the weeks after the alleged incident.

“Having heard [the defendant’s] evidence, I am not sure as to whether he has committed an act of indecency towards a dog,” the judge said. “I am left with a reasonable doubt.

“The charge is not proven.”

Another accusation emerges

Before announcing his decision, Judge Fraser also noted the defendant’s explanation that he no longer had erections for sexual arousal. Evidence was not put before the court that the defendant had been found guilty of child molestation at another Auckland courthouse just over two weeks earlier.

He had been arrested for the child-related offence in 2024 while awaiting trial for the dog indecency charge.

At Auckland District Court this week, Judge Gibson outlined those allegations.

It involved skin-on-skin contact with a young girl. There was a major breach of trust in that the defendant “deliberately ingratiated yourself with the child’s father and befriended him so you could gain access to his daughter”, the judge noted. The grooming was so successful that the father “felt safe and secure” to leave his daughter around the defendant, he said.

“She is still suffering from the effects of what you did,” the judge said.

He also noted that a pre-sentencing analysis of the defendant found him to be a very high-risk offender and likely to offend again, in part because he doesn’t accept the verdict.

“Your release on parole will have to be carefully managed,” Judge Gibson said.

In addition to the prison term, he ordered that the man be placed “once again” on the sex offender register, which is accessible by police but not the public.

Defence lawyer Deb Rawson asked Judge Gibson for interim name suppression while the trial outcome is appealed. If a higher court was to grant a retrial, she argued, having her client’s name published would jeopardise his right to a fair trial.

Judge Gibson denied the request.

“There is a clear media and public interest in this matter,” he said. “Public interest ... is not easily displaced.

“I consider he represents a real threat to young children, and that in itself is a [convincing argument] for publication of his name.”

But the defendant said he then wished to appeal the suppression decision as well. The judge admitted defeat, noting that the ultimate decision would have to be left to the High Court as long as the defendant filed an appeal in the next month.

Victim of the system

The defendant’s child victim was not in court for this week’s sentencing, although the judge was given a written victim impact statement from her mother.

However, the Dobermann’s owner was in the courtroom gallery, just as she had been for all recent hearings involving the animal indecency charge.

She readily acknowledged the case involving her dog, who has since died of old age, paled in comparison to the child abuse charge. But she, too, felt like a victim of the system, she said.

Also a musician, she had played in the same group as the defendant until the incident happened. After he was charged, the two were separated but allowed to participate at different times.

“People knew there was something going on but they didn’t know what it was,” she said, explaining that it would have been natural for people to assume – albeit erroneously – that she had accused him of a sexual offence against her.

Because of his suppression, she said, she couldn’t explain the bizarre and infuriating situation she found herself in.

She described the defendant as having a knack for putting on a “sweet and innocent” facade that “sucked everyone in”. He didn’t drink or smoke and identified as a Christian. She had been among those who had been fooled for years, with no inkling of his history of sexual offending, she said.

“It made going to band really difficult,” she said, explaining that she eventually quit. “I didn’t feel comfortable going back.”

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.