Northland Olympian guilty of indecent assault stripped of Legend status

Arthur Parkin has been removed as a Northland Legend of Sport.

Olympic gold medallist Arthur Parkin has been removed as a Northland Legend of Sport after he was found guilty of two charges of indecent assault against a teen girl.

The former hockey player had been inducted into the Northland Legends of Sport in 2016 after competing at four Olympic Games, winning a gold medal with the men's hockey team in Montreal in 1976.

Sport Northland board chairman Chris Biddles said last night's decision to remove Parkin was unanimous.

Biddles said Sport Northland had no further comment to make.

Last month, Parkin was found guilty of indecently assaulting a girl aged 12-16.

The complainant had said she was indecently assaulted by Parkin on a couch and that on another occasion, when she was only 11, Parkin forced her to touch his groin.

"Imprisonment is very much on the cards," Judge Robert Ronayne told Parkin, who is now on bail awaiting sentencing in May.

The trial

Parkin faced five charges of indecently assaulting young girls in Whangarei, Auckland and Coromandel between 1975 and 1983.

Crown prosecutor Fiona Culliney told the trial Parkin abused the young girls on separate occasions.

The trio did not mention the alleged abuse to anyone for years, Culliney said.

Two of the girls were encouraged to lay a complaint with police by a person close to Parkin and police began investigating in 2016.

A third complainant came forward after seeing media reports about the allegations.

Eleven of the 12 jurors found him guilty of two charges related to the second of three complainants.

The second complainant said she was indecently assaulted by Parkin in an Auckland home and said that on another occasion, when she was only 11, Parkin forced her to touch his erection.

The jury decided unanimously that he was not guilty on the three other charges.