He was 19 years older than the girl.
Laitti Ah Hi took numerous photos and videos of the girl and him together, often embracing, according to a Crown summary of facts.
He would also get angry and controlling, on one day slapping the girl’s face with an open hand multiple times.
The summary said Laitti Ah Hi was told by the girl’s support workers repeatedly that she was only 15 years old, and too young to be having sex.
One of them encountered him on a Hastings street and told him that if he continued to have a relationship with the girl, knowing she was a child and vulnerable, he would go to jail.
He put his head down and said, “Yes”.
She told him to end the relationship, but it continued.
Laitti Ah Hi appeared for sentencing after pleading guilty to a representative charge of sexual connection with a young person.
Judge Bridget Mackintosh sentenced him to two years and three months in prison.
She said the offending had some “very nasty aspects to it” and was linked to loneliness, excessive alcohol use and a life disrupted when Laitti Ah Hi moved from Samoa.
Laitti Ah Hi, who appeared in court attended by a Samoan interpreter, is now a New Zealand citizen.
On May 30, Laitti Ah Hi was served with a restraining order telling him to stay away from the girl.
On the same day he sent her a message saying “I’m not with you any more”, with emojis of broken hearts, photographs of them together and telling her he still loved her.
Judge Mackintosh referred to a victim impact statement in which the girl said she felt relieved Laitti Ah Hi was out of her life.
Laitti Ah Hi was also convicted of breaching the restraining order, willful damage, assaulting police and resisting police.
He received lesser concurrent jail terms for those charges.
