Man who sexually abused 15 boys in Northland and South Island jailed for six and a half years

Ryan Mark Burrows was sentenced in High Court at Whangārei to more than six years jail for a raft of sex offending against boys.

A man was paid to support and educate vulnerable children but instead used his trusted position for evil, the High Court at Whangārei was told.

Ryan Mark Burrows, 34, was jailed for six and a half years by Justice Christine Gordon, who also imposed a minimum non-parole period of four years, four months. He will be added to the national register of child sex offenders.

The sentence covers 23 charges, to which he previously pleaded guilty, of sexual abuse of adolescent males in Northland and the South Island between 2012 and 2018.

The offending lasted several months, in some cases a year or two. The youngest victim was 10.

His guilty pleas followed a change in counsel and led to a further 35 charges being dismissed and others being amended or consolidated into representative ones.

The remaining charges were three of sexual connection with a person under 16, 12 of doing an indecent act with a person under 16, doing an indecent act on a person under 12, two of indecent assault (a boy over 16), three of receiving commercial sexual services from a person under 18, supplying cannabis to a person under 18, and wilfully attempting to obstruct justice.

The South Island offending happened when Burrows was employed as a non-teaching staff member at an education facility and also led a youth group.

It stopped when he moved to Northland, where he worked as an arborist, but resumed a few years later when he met a group of young men socially and another victim through an online dating service.

His offending against some of his South Island victims continued on his occasional visits.

Justice Gordon said victim impact statements filed by seven of the victims shared common themes no doubt experienced by all the victims. Burrows' offending caused serious and probably irreparable harm.

The victims spoke of their feeling of betrayal when they realised they were deceived by someone who pretended to be a friend, who made them feel valued, but then abused and manipulated them to fulfil his sexual desires.

All described how their personalities and outlooks had changed. Burrows introduced them at a vulnerable and formative stage of their lives to alcohol, cannabis and sex.

Many had developed alcohol and drug dependency and confusion about their sexuality and relationships with other males. They experienced emotional and sleep problems.

Many became suicidal. The offending affected every aspect of their lives including education and work opportunities.

The mother of one victim said Burrows had a trusted position working with her son and was paid to support and educate him but instead used that power for evil - as a predator.

Aware some of the victims felt guilty for not reporting the offending earlier and thereby possibly preventing Burrows from reoffending, Justice Gordon said she wanted them to know the full responsibility of Burrows' offending lay with him. They were courageous to speak up.

After befriending the youths Burrows would give them gifts or favours - money, meals, gaming credits, cannabis, alcohol, cigarettes, transport and a place to stay. But it soon transitioned into him bargaining with them for sexual favours, which by then they felt they owed him.

The court noted none of his offending involved any penetrative acts or violence.

Burrows' persistence was one of the aggravating features of the offending noted by the court.

Calculating sentence, Justice Gordon said the lead charges were the three unlawful sexual connection offences. For the most serious of the three, she imposed a starting point of three years, six months. She imposed a further two years for the two similar charges.

She applied a three-year uplift for the sexual offences involving the remaining 12 victims and the charge of offering to supply cannabis.

Discounts totalled 35 per cent – 20 per cent for guilty pleas, 10 per cent for remorse and prospects of rehabilitation, and 5 per cent for personal circumstances including Burrows' own childhood abuse and claimed mental health issues at the time of the offending.

The judge noted Burrows' lack of empathy for his victims as evidenced by his remark to a pre-sentence report writer that, "a lot of them were teens, old enough to say 'f*** off' ". Notwithstanding, the judge accepted Burrows was making an effort to take responsibility for the offending and was willing to engage with rehabilitative programmes.