Former New Zealand sports star admits sending series of nude images of woman

The former New Zealand sports star appeared in New Plymouth District Court today. Photo / Tara Shaskey

A former top sports star threatened to post a woman’s naked photos to her social media accounts before sending a series of the images to a relative’s phone.

The man, who represented New Zealand internationally, was told by the woman that what he was doing was inappropriate and to delete the photos, which he had obtained consensually.

But he ignored her request and repeatedly sent them for more than a week.

Now, the man, who has interim name suppression, has appeared in the District Court at New Plymouth where Judge Tony Greig has warned him that he may soon be wearing an ankle monitor as a consequence of the offending.

Today, the man pleaded guilty to three representative charges of posting an intimate visual recording without consent.

A representative charge means he committed multiple offences of the same type in similar circumstances.

According to the police summary of facts, on May 23 this year the man sent the woman several naked photos of herself.

He told her to remember he had a lot of photos and that they were “worth a share”, and threatened to post them to her social media accounts.

On May 30, the man sent a naked photo of the woman to the phone of one of her relatives, with the intention and understanding that it would be her who saw the communication and not the relative.

He followed it with a message saying he “loved the photo”.

The woman asked him to stop and delete the images, but he went on to send several more photos of her.

One of the photos was sent with the message: “Shame you are a f***wit with nice t***”.

According to the summary, the messaging continued between June 5 and June 8 with the man sending photos to the relative’s phone on at least two occasions.

During the three days, the woman asked him twice to delete the images and pointed out that what he was doing was inappropriate.

On one occasion, he responded that she should not have shared the photos with him.

In court, Judge Greig entered the guilty pleas, ordered a pre-sentence report and referred the case to restorative justice.

The judge said home detention and community detention would be considered as sentencing options as prison was the starting point for this type of offending.

Name suppression of the man would continue until his sentencing on November 28.

However, defence lawyer Nathan Bourke said an application for permanent name suppression would likely be made.

Tara Shaskey joined NZME in 2022 as a news director and Open Justice reporter. She has been a reporter since 2014 and previously worked at Stuff covering crime and justice, arts and entertainment, and Māori issues.