The former head of Hato Petera College's cultural group has been convicted of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old student at the school 25 years ago.
Phillip John Munro, aged 48, pleaded guilty to assaulting the boy.
He was previously convicted of similar assaults of two other students and sentenced to 18-months' imprisonment in 1997.
Yesterday in the Hamilton District Court, Munro was sentenced to 200 hours' community service.
Judge Geoffrey Rea said Munro was saved from a much stronger sentence only because he had already served time for the other offences, but this should not detract from the severity of the gross breach of trust committed.
The court heard how Munro lived and worked at the North Shore Catholic boys' school during the 1970s and 1980s and was in charge of the kapa haka cultural group.
In 1975, he told the victim, a kapa haka group member, to see him one evening and asked him to perform an indecency on him. When he noticed the victim was disgusted by what was happening, he asked him to stop.
The boy did not mention the assault until his life began to fall apart and he told his sisters and made his complaint to police.
Munro, living and working at Hopuhopu Marae, near Ngaruawahia, hung his head throughout the hearing.
Man convicted of schoolboy assault
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