Waikato police sergeant's sentencing for sex offences adjourned

A Waikato policeman convicted of sex offences has had his sentencing adjourned.

Sergeant Gregory David Waters, a former road policing officer and police prosecutor, was found guilty of five charges of indecent assault by a jury in the Hamilton District Court in May this year.

The 30-year police veteran was back before Judge Nevin Dawson for sentencing this morning.

He defended seven charges of indecently assaulting a woman over 16 in Cambridge on July 6, 2015. One charge was dismissed, while he was found not guilty on another.

Waters, 53, touched the woman's genitalia four times and simulated sexual intercourse.

Prosecutor Duncan McWilliam submitted the Crown was seeking a starting point sentence of imprisonment for Waters due to the seriousness and repetitive nature of the offending which occurred for about an hour.

However, defence counsel Philip Morgan QC submitted that while he was asked to call for submissions around home detention appendices, he didn't because he didn't think the offending warranted a term of imprisonment and was "surprised" by the Crown's stance.

"For a man of good character, as this man unquestionably was and whose life has been effectively ruined by this, I say that a community-based sentence is the appropriate outcome."

However, Judge Dawson disagreed and said it did warrant a starting point of imprisonment.

He adjourned the sentencing until August 8 to allow probation time to complete the various reports needed for the sentencing options of home detention and community detention.

Waters is married and has been a police officer for about 30 years. As well as a short stint as a police prosecutor in the Hamilton District Court, he worked as a crash analyst with the road policing team but was more recently in charge of processing Official Information Act requests.

Waikato police area commander Superintendent Bruce Bird earlier confirmed to the Herald that Waters had been stood down since charges were laid in 2015 and was the subject of an employment investigation in relation to "off-duty behaviour".