The complainant alleged she was abused for two years by a Whangārei mental health worker. Photo / 123rf
WARNING: This article discusses allegations of sexual abuse and may be upsetting to some readers.
A man who has been defending charges of historical sexual abuse at trial braced himself as the jury returned with verdicts after deliberating for less than an hour.
As the foreperson delivered 16 not‑guilty verdicts, he broke down in tears.
The decision brought an end to years of allegations, followed by an aborted first trial and a four‑year wait for a verdict.
The defendant, whose name is suppressed, has been on trial in the Whangārei District Court facing 16 charges alleging unlawful sexual connection, indecent assaults and rape of a female over the age of 16.
The charges were laid in 2022, and in May 2025, the first trial was aborted partway through the complainant’s evidence.
Almost a year later, the retrial began last month, with the jury hearing evidence from the complainant and members of the man’s family.
The jury heard that as a child, the complainant was in the care of Oranga Tamariki and had been relocated to the man’s home from a previous placement.
She had reportedly suffered sexual abuse and violence in her previous placements.
The man, who was working as a mental health worker at the time, had the girl brought into his care because of a familial relationship.
The now-adult complainant alleged the sexual offending began almost immediately after she moved in with him and continued for two years until she moved out.
In an evidential police interview, taken 20 years after the alleged offending, the complainant said the man had insisted she sleep in his bed and that she would have sex with him daily.
“There was no one to save me. If it didn’t happen there, it happened in the car, he would come to my job, take me to motels, that kind of thing,” she said.
Witnesses who lived in the home at the time gave evidence that they never saw the complainant sleep in the man’s bed.
In closing statements to the jury, Crown lawyer David Stevens said, despite evidence of the complainant’s troubled childhood, she was credible and reliable.
“This trial is clearly not about what [she] endured before she was placed with the defendant but that background does help to explain why she says she felt so alone when the abuse started immediately after she moved in,” Stevens said.
He said the girl had no money and no phone when she went to live with the man and he held a position of power in his work and home life.
“The defendant was much older, he had a job ... working as a mental health worker ... He was in a position of power and authority and she knew that power imbalance.”
The defendant elected to give evidence at the trial, which Stevens said had inconsistencies.
“It stretches the bounds of plausibility and his evidence cannot be relied upon,” Stevens said.
“She was not making it up when she walked into the police station.
“The Crown suggests guilty verdicts are available in this case.”
Defence lawyer Wayne McKean hit back, claiming the inconsistencies were minor and irrelevant.
McKean also said the complainant originally “swore black and blue to Oranga Tamariki nothing sexual happened”, and her evidence was “inconceivable”.
“I accept if it happened once or twice, even a dozen times, even 20 times, he might have been able to get away with it, but that’s not the evidence,” McKean said.
“She says she shared the bed every night and the sex happened every single day.
“It’s inconceivable his daughters would not have noticed that eventually.”
McKean noted the complainant misstated her age 34 times in her evidential interview and, when she was first uplifted from the man’s house, repeatedly asked to go back.
“The Crown can’t explain ‘I want to go back’,” McKean said.
“Why on earth is she saying I want to go back?
“You can’t be sure. There are still doubts and the appropriate verdict is not guilty.”
After listening to Judge Peter Davey’s summation of the trial, the jury retired at 11.18am on Thursday to deliberate.
It returned at 12.02pm with a unanimous outcome.
After the not guilty verdicts were read aloud and the jury was discharged, Judge Davey said the man was free to go.
He walked out the courtroom door, still in tears.
Shannon Pitman is a Whangārei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ngāpuhi/ Ngāti Pūkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.