Ian McKinney was first convicted in 2017 for inappropriate behaviour with two international students.
A longtime Auckland teacher who was convicted in 2017 for inappropriate behaviour with two international student boarders welcomed another young adult into his house five years after his home detention ended.
That living situation has now also resulted in a criminal charge, as well as a second round of home detention.
It’s clear that such a sentence didn’t work as a deterrent for Ian Ross McKinney, a police prosecutor said yesterday as the 78-year-old defendant returned to the North Shore District Court to face sentencing for making over 400 intimate visual recordings.
But McKinney’s age-related health issues, his interest in ongoing counselling and his show of remorse via a substantial emotional harm restitution payment made a non-custodial sentence the clear choice, his lawyer argued.
“Your offending has had a serious impact on [the victim],” Judge Paul Murray later told the defendant. “It was a significant breach of trust.”
But ultimately, the judge agreed that a non-custodial sentence was the best outcome for the charge, which carries a three-year maximum term.
Court documents state McKinney had invited a 23-year-old woman from Japan to stay at his Devonport home while she was visiting New Zealand on an extended working holiday. She and her family trusted McKinney, she said, because he had hosted someone they knew during a prior international student stay.
“He never once brought up that he’d been sentenced for sexual misconduct,” she said in a written victim impact statement that the prosecutor read aloud in court.
Although the two were in separate bedrooms, they shared a bathroom.
“The bathroom roof is made of glass and a gap between the wall of the bathroom and the roof allows for the reflection of the bathroom to be seen from the hallway/stairway landing area,” the agreed summary of facts explains.
“The defendant took approximately 430 photographs between the months of March to December 2023, which included the victim in states of undress in the bathroom, naked in the shower and using the toilet.”
When McKinney’s behaviour was discovered, the woman paid for an early flight home. It tainted what had until that point been a “beautiful” New Zealand experience and had had lasting consequences, she said.
“Ever since the incident, I’ve been anxious going to the bathroom,” she wrote. “This has caused serious emotional distress...
“I believe I will have to carry this weight with me for the rest of my life ... I feel taken advantage of.”
When approached by police about the allegation, McKinney admitted to taking the photos but claimed falsely that he had taken only a few. He denied being sexually aroused and said he took them only because he was resentful about the boarder not helping around the house or paying rent.
But his attitude has changed tremendously since then, defence lawyer Adam Couchman told the judge, explaining that McKinney has voluntarily engaged in counselling since the arrest and hoped to continue doing so.
“The main objective is to avoid this man going to prison ... with no access to any counselling, courses or anything,” Couchman said, referring to his client’s letter of apology and pledge to pay between $10,000 and $15,000 to the victim to help recoup her expenses of leaving the country so suddenly.
“He’s an elderly man, obviously,” the lawyer added. “He is not in good health. He’s struggled physically.
“He’s riddled with anxiety ... He takes this whole thing very seriously.”
Judge Murray ordered a 16-month starting point before adding a 5% uplift for his three 2017 convictions for indecent assault.
The two male victims in that case had been aged 16 and 24 at the time of the offending, according to the Herald’s coverage of McKinney’s 2017 sentencing. He had been a teacher since 1967 and regularly had international students stay with him, the court was told.
The first victim told authorities he had been boarding with McKinney when the teacher came into his room wearing only underwear and a singlet and began hugging him. On a second occasion, the same student said he woke up to find McKinney in a similar state of undress and cuddling with him in bed.
A subsequent victim who boarded with McKinney after the first victim left said the partially undressed defendant stroked his bottom as he was walking down a hallway in the home.
At the time, McKinney had most recently taught at the New Zealand Institute of Education, a private tertiary institution offering English-language business courses to international students. He’s now retired, Judge Murray noted this week.
Judges at both sentencing hearings cited background reports suggesting that McKinney “craved emotional connection” after an “emotionally cold” upbringing.
McKinney told authorities prior to the 2017 sentencing that he would “hug and hold all [his] students so they should feel comfortable about their new environment”. It was part of his “caring and compassionate nature”, the court was told.
Judge Murray allowed 40% in reductions at this week’s sentencing to account for McKinney’s remorse, rehabilitation efforts and early guilty plea. It resulted in a sentence of 10 months’ imprisonment, which the judge then converted to five months of home detention.
McKinney was also ordered to pay $12,000 in emotional harm reparation and submit to six months of post-detention conditions, including allowing a probation officer to examine all devices capable of storing photos.
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.