Tanielu was arrested immediately and told police there was no reason for his actions, and he was “just trying to joke around”.
He appeared in the Hamilton District Court yesterday where he tried, unsuccessfully, to try and get a discharge without conviction on a charge of indecently assaulting the police officer.
Police submitted Tanielu’s actions were intense and intrusiveness, and “the poke represented an actual application of force to the anus area”, was degrading and offensive.
“He believes he should feel safe at work and does not understand how a person could do something like that, let alone to a police officer on duty, and does not trust people behind him,” Judge Glen Marshall reading from an excerpt of the victim’s impact statement.
‘He does not go around touching people when sober’
In pushing for a discharge without conviction Glenn Dixon said his client immediately tried to apologised to the officer for what happened and the “stupidity of what he’d done”.
“He tried to apologise, they wouldn’t accept it and understandably were outraged,” Dixon said.
Tanielu, who had never appeared in court before, did “important work” working with the mentally unwell in the community as a psychiatric care assistant at Te Whatu Ora’s Henry Bennett Centre.
Dixon said Tanielu had already suffered as a result of what happened; after informing his boss he’d been demoted and was now working as a care worker but always had another employee with him at all times.
“There’s no doubt that Te Whatu Ora are not going to commit to saying that they will sack him, but I don’t think there would be any doubt that he won’t be sacked from this job and likely never get a job of the same sort in the future.
“If any employer saw a conviction for indecent assault... they would be unlikely to consider him for the position.”
However, either way, Dixon said the grounds for the 106 were met, and his client had also taken rehabilitative steps by attending counselling with Care NZ.
“We know that this man does not go around touching people when he is sober.
“This was a drunken, stupid error which this man made in jest, thinking it was a joke and the officer was deeply impacted by what happened.”
His wife, who had suffered a miscarriage not long before the offending, was also in court to support him.
‘Doesn’t meet the threshold’
Judge Marshall found Tanielu’s offending to be moderately serious and said being intoxicated wasn’t an excuse for what he’d done.
He also accepted the financial impact on his job after being demoted and the future impact a conviction would have, but said an employer had a right to know about his offending.
“Mr Tanielu has taken this matter seriously, he shows deep remorse and has engaged appropriately with Care NZ... in my view, the direct and indirect consequences of a conviction would not be out of proportion to the offending.”
Judge Marshall dismissed Tanielu’s application, convicted him, and ordered him to come up if called upon within six months.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for nine years and has been a journalist for 20.
