Former deputy principal's jail time cut

Former Selwyn Primary deputy principal Glen Rohan Lovatt has had a year cut from his sentence. Photo / Ben Fraser

A former Rotorua deputy principal who sexually assaulted three pupils has had a year cut from his prison sentence.

In the High Court at Rotorua today Justice Peter Woodhouse reduced Glen Rohan Lovatt's term of imprisonment from six years and three months to five years and three months. Lovatt was not present at the appeal.

Lovatt, a former Selwyn Primary School deputy principal, was found guilty in November 2011 of two charges of sexual violation and three charges of doing indecent acts on two boys under 12 between 1995 and 1999. He was sentenced to four years and three months in prison.

A third victim then came forward and in November last year Lovatt, then 48, pleaded guilty to sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and two counts of doing an indecent act on a boy under 12, in 1996. He was sentenced to a further two years in prison.

The offending against all three boys happened at the school while they were students.

In the High Court at Rotorua, Lovatt's lawyer, Paul Wicks, appealed the second sentence, claiming it made the sentence as a whole ``manifestly excessive''.

He submitted the district court judge had made an error in his approach to sentencing and should have looked at what the appropriate starting point would have been if Lovatt was being sentenced on all the offences at once.

Rotorua Crown prosecutor Amanda Gordon acknowledged the second sentence had been "at the stern end of the range'' and was more than the Crown had sought.

Justice Peter Woodhouse allowed the appeal and reduced the two-year sentence in relation to the third victim to one year.

"I have been persuaded, albeit with some hesitation, that the overall sentence of six years three months is manifestly excessive,'' he said. "It was borderline.''