Auckland teacher's aide Hoera Farrell-Moehurori has been sentenced for the indecent assault of a 15-year-old he knew through the school where he worked. Photo / 123rf
A teacher’s aide who made an inappropriate pass at a 15-year-old student while giving him a ride home from school has been sentenced to home detention but allowed to stay off the sex-offender register.
Pt England resident Hoera Joseph Elias Farrell-Moehurori, 31, pleaded guilty to one count of indecent assault for the November 2023 incident.
“This should never have happened,” Auckland District Court Judge David Sharp told Farrell-Moehurori during his sentencing hearing last month, according to court documents newly obtained by the Herald.
“It was a serious departure by you from proper standards.”
Although there was no skin-on-skin contact, deterrence was important “to try to ensure that people do not sexually abuse young people or children”, the judge added, emphasising to Farrell-Moehurori that he denounced the offending “in the strongest terms”.
Court documents state the defendant suggested the two “chill in the car for a bit” after the student asked him for a lift home after school.
The name of the school where Farrell-Moehurori worked and the student attended has been permanently suppressed.
After parking at a secluded area near a wharf, Farrell-Moehurori asked the boy inappropriate questions about pornography and his sexual experience.
“You asked if he wanted to see it, and the victim took this to mean to see your penis,” the judge recounted, referring to the agreed summary of facts. “He refused.”
Farrell-Moehurori then rubbed the student’s thigh over his clothes for about two minutes before dropping him off at home and telling him to keep it a secret. The boy later told police.
In a subsequent interview with authorities, Farrell-Moehurori acknowledged rubbing the teen’s thigh but insisted it was for only five to 10 seconds. He confessed to a mixture of guilt and animosity about what happened, claiming that the victim had threatened to tell the school unless Farrell-Moehurori gave him money.
Judge Sharp mentioned the claim during the sentencing but did not offer an opinion on its validity.
“You felt that you were dealt with in a way that was not fair in respect of things,” the judge explained.
Nonetheless, he added, the defendant was willing to discuss the crime in detail and had taken serious steps towards rehabilitation.
“I knew it was wrong and I apologised immediately,” Farrell-Moehurori said during the interview.
He said he could not explain his behaviour that afternoon.
The judge told him, “You acknowledged the victim would have been scared and confused and that you were responsible for ruining the victim’s education pathway, for which you expressed shame and remorse.”
Since the incident, Farrell-Moehurori said, his once bubbly personality had been clouded by deep depression.
“You were tearful, stating that you had brought shame on your family,” the judge noted. “You say that you have frequent nightmares, and the incident keeps racing through your head. You say that you cannot forgive yourself and have intense remorse for what you have done.”
While all that might be true, it was also important to consider that “offences of this nature are noted as being devastating for sensitive teenagers”, the judge added.
Defence lawyer Scott Williams asked for community detention, but the judge said eight months of more restrictive home detention was the best he could do, given the facts of the case.
“I realise that that sentence is going to make life difficult for you, but I see no way around it,” he said, also ordering $2000 in emotional harm reparation to be paid in weekly $20 instalments.
Police prosecutor Yara Alrubayee asked the judge to place the defendant on the sex-offender register.
“They point to the risks that you have posed, to the fact that the complainant has been harmed here in a way that is significant and that that harm has been shown to me in victim impact statements...” Judge Sharp explained. “The mother of the victim also seeks to see you registered on the basis that you would not be able to, or would be less likely to, reoffend.”
But he ultimately declined the prosecution’s request.
While an initial assessment found Farrell-Moehurori to present an above-average risk of sexual reoffending, it was a flawed process, the judge said. A more comprehensive follow-up assessment determined there was a low recidivism risk.
The judge noted that the defendant had voluntarily started counselling and would receive mandatory treatment for harmful sexual behaviour while serving his non-custodial sentence.
A psychological report prepared for the sentencing hearing concluded that the actions that led to his arrest were “out of character” and the result of the “unexpected opportunity of being alone with the victim”.
But the judge emphasised the large age gap and the power imbalance.
“This was a breach of trust,” he said. “You were a teacher aide.
“Your knowledge of the victim and your ability to gain access to the victim directly came from your position of trust and a job that you did, and that was a serious misuse of a trusted position.”
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.
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.