{"id":141401,"date":"2025-11-18T15:55:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T15:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/141401\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T15:55:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T15:55:09","slug":"ex-marist-brother-and-serial-paedophile-charles-afeaki-denied-parole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/141401\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Marist brother and serial paedophile Charles Afeaki denied parole"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former Marist Brother has been in and out of prison<\/a> since the mid-1990s, when he was first prosecuted for the historical sexual abuse<\/a>. He has not been accused of current offending for over two decades, but the number of his known victims from the earlier period has steadily grown. <\/p>\n

Afeaki was handed a 25-month prison term in August last year after admitting to the abuse of two boys at schools in Auckland and Invercargill.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer Marist Brother and boarding school teacher Charles Afeaki, who sexually abused students in Auckland and Invercargill in the 1970s and 1980s, is sentenced again in Auckland District Court on June 4 this year. Photo \/ Craig Kapitan<\/p>\n

Auckland District Court Judge Kirsten Lummis added two months to that sentence<\/a> in June this year for the abuse in 1975 of a 12-year-old attending Invercargill\u2019s Marist Brothers Primary School.<\/p>\n

In a pre-sentencing interview, Afeaki told authorities he didn\u2019t remember that accuser nor the allegation he had pleaded guilty to, but he accepted he must have done it because it matched so closely how he had victimised other boys.<\/p>\n

The sentencing was Afeaki\u2019s 40th criminal conviction for child sexual abuse and involved his eighth confirmed victim.<\/p>\n

Even during the last sentencing, another set of charges was waiting, involving allegations he repeatedly indecently assaulted an 11-year-old boy in Whanganui in 1977. Those charges remain pending. <\/p>\n

And a new charge, involving a 10th accuser<\/a>, was filed out of Auckland District Court in September. That accuser previously told the Herald he was abused some time between April and June 1980 on a single occasion after he was caught giving the defendant the finger. <\/p>\n

\"BrotherBrother Charles Afeaki. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

Afeaki, then a teacher at St Paul\u2019s College in Ponsonby, allegedly responded by grabbing the student by the arm and pulling him into his personal quarters, closing the door behind him as he began to inflict a series of hard slaps.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know what the finger means?\u201d Afeaki allegedly asked the young teen. \u201cIt means f*** you. So you want me to f*** you, do you?\u201d<\/p>\n

The accuser recalled crying, pleading with Afeaki to stop as the teacher continued the beating and tried to pull off his shorts. He wouldn\u2019t tell anybody about the incident until 45 years later, after a near-death experience, he said. <\/p>\n

Afeaki has pleaded not guilty to both of the pending sets of charges and has elected a judge-alone trial. A date has not yet been set. <\/p>\n

His lawyer confirmed that the pending charges are not suppressed. <\/p>\n

During yesterday\u2019s hearing, the contents of which were suppressed until this morning, Judge Lovell-Smith noted that Afeaki\u2019s next parole hearing is set for April. <\/p>\n

But she also noted that a lot could happen between now and then \u2013 including charges possibly being dropped due to the time elapsed since the alleged offending. If there was a major change in circumstances, she said, Afeaki\u2019s lawyer could apply for an urgent hearing to reconsider parole. <\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, by April, a lot of things will get sorted,\u201d she said, adding: \u201cWe have taken into account your health issues. Obviously, we are concerned about that.\u201d <\/p>\n

She noted that the inmate had received positive reports from those who manage his case. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry we can\u2019t give you a decision at this stage on release, but we need to tick all the boxes and be satisfied that you aren\u2019t an undue risk,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Craig Kapitan<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former Marist Brother has been in and out of prison since the mid-1990s, when he was first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[52222,7577,1903,95888,95,2372,34705,1848,31468,54509,9861,62240,15159,15453,95887,111,43,139,69,54693,47839,65190,8998,2887,6649,21413,15386,13797],"class_list":["post-141401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-1970s","tag-80s","tag-abuse","tag-afeaki","tag-and","tag-board","tag-boarding","tag-boys","tag-brother","tag-catholic","tag-charles","tag-declined","tag-denied","tag-elderly","tag-exmarist","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paedophile","tag-parole","tag-physically","tag-position","tag-release","tag-schools","tag-serial","tag-sexually","tag-used"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}