{"id":194113,"date":"2025-12-21T00:23:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T00:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/194113\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T00:23:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T00:23:29","slug":"grindr-attackers-thomas-bull-ethan-jeffs-and-patrick-moloney-sentenced-in-the-tauranga-district-court-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/194113\/","title":{"rendered":"Grindr attackers Thomas Bull, Ethan Jeffs and Patrick Moloney sentenced in the Tauranga District Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

The summary of facts said other similar groups<\/a> were doing the same in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.<\/p>\n

In Tauranga<\/a>, Thomas Bull, Ethan Jeffs and Patrick Moloney had varied roles and levels of culpability, but all faced charges of assault, injuring with intent to injure and posting a harmful digital communication. They have all now been sentenced in the Tauranga District Court<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s understood there were other unknown associates involved..<\/p>\n

Group used social media to organise \u2018hunts\u2019<\/p>\n

The summary of facts said the three were in a Snapchat group called \u201cFreaky Group\u201d, where they would discuss catching \u201cso-called paedophiles\u201d and plan what they would do on their next \u201chunt\u201d.<\/p>\n

While the specific incidents varied in terms of locations and the extent of the assaults, they all followed a similar pattern.<\/p>\n

Fake profiles were made, messages exchanged and gay men were lured to private homes, parks and streets, often late at night.<\/p>\n

Not all of the victims were identified, but the summary of facts details 13 separate assaults between August and September 2024.<\/p>\n

The assaults included punches, kicks, stomps and slaps. During one assault a man was made to strip naked.<\/p>\n

When the victims tried to run they would be chased by the group, and during some of the assaults the attackers wore balaclavas.<\/p>\n

Videos of the assaults were then posted online, which caused the victims \u201cconsiderable emotional distress\u201d.<\/p>\n

One of the harmful digital communications, attributed to Bull, included naming a person on the Child Sex Offenders Register and posting identifying features that included his place of work and vehicle registration.<\/p>\n

The man was \u201cjumped\u201d a few days after the post, causing him \u201cemotional harm\u201d.<\/p>\n

Judge Melinda Mason, in a sentencing indication given to Bull in June, said the victims had suffered bleeding, bruises, grazes and cuts to their faces.<\/p>\n

She described Bull\u2019s words, as he filmed an attack, as \u201cdisturbing\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat you could see people hurt like that and encourage everyone to behave in that way, which to me did look like a real hate crime, the words that you used and the behaviour that you kept encouraging, and you did it more than once,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Judge Paul Geoghegan, in his sentencing remarks to Moloney in August, said \u201cto describe these assaults as despicable and cowardly is something of an understatement\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"PatrickPatrick Paul Moloney pictured at an earlier court appearance in 2024. He was sentenced in August 2025. Photo \/ Ayla Yeoman<\/p>\n

Judge Stephen Coyle, who sentenced Jeffs in November, agreed with Judge Mason that it was a \u201chate crime\u201d.<\/p>\n

He disagreed with a submission from Jeffs\u2019 lawyer Rachael Adams, who said her client\u2019s intention was not to target gay men but to target paedophiles.<\/p>\n

She said the Grindr app was primarily used because it was free, not because it was used by gay men.<\/p>\n

Judge Coyle said while he accepted the comments Jeffs made were \u201cclearly designed to imply that these people had a sexual interest in minors\u201d, he couldn\u2019t \u201cdivorce that from the fact that you targeted gay men\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said it wasn\u2019t the targeting of men generally, or indeed women, who were seeking sex with young people. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the targeting of gay men and the clear conclusion I have reached is that this was a hate crime,\u201d Judge Coyle said.<\/p>\n

\"EthanEthan Marc Jeffs, pictured at an earlier appearance in 2024, was sentenced in the Tauranga District Court in November 2025. Photo \/ Ayla Yeoman.<\/p>\n

All three defendants received discounts for youth, as they were aged 18 or 19 at the time, and for their guilty pleas. <\/p>\n

Moloney had recently become a father at the time of his sentencing.<\/p>\n

Judge Geoghegan told Moloney he needed to \u201cthink about what role modelling you need to provide for your son\u201d and asked him to think about how he would feel about his child being \u201cdealt with in the way that you dealt with the victims of your offending\u201d.<\/p>\n

When Jeffs was sentenced, the court was told he was soon to become a father.<\/p>\n

Judge Coyle had earlier told him there was little in the reports he\u2019d seen to indicate any real remorse and declined to give him a discount for good character.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour character is someone who enjoyed humiliating and disrespecting other people, who enjoyed watching victims squirm, be fearful, enjoyed intimidating them and have enjoyed further humiliating them by participating in the uploading on to social media of what occurred,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

He had also gone back for multiple attacks, failing to think \u201cwhat the heck have I done?\u201d in the days that followed the first assault.<\/p>\n

Despite the reprimand, however, Judge Coyle concluded by telling Jeffs he was young and his life was ahead of him.<\/p>\n

If he \u201crecognised that this was stupid, something [he] never want[ed] to repeat\u201d, then he would be defined by \u201cwho [he] becomes\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll be defined in life by the parent you are to your soon-to-be-born child, and you will not be defined in life by this.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Bull, who faced the most charges of the trio, Judge Mason told him that between giving him a sentence indication, with a starting point of four and a half years, and his sentencing date, he had become a \u201cdifferent person\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bull had been assessed by a psychiatrist and had been undergoing treatment for a previously undiagnosed \u201cmental health issue\u201d.<\/p>\n

Through counselling and engagement with the rehabilitative programme Live For More, Bull had done some \u201creally good work\u201d.<\/p>\n

The three received end sentences, which took into account their varied culpability, rehabilitative efforts, remorse and background issues.<\/p>\n

Bull was sentenced to eight and a half months\u2019 home detention, Moloney was sentenced to nine months\u2019 home detention, and Jeffs was sentenced to 10 months\u2019 home detention.<\/p>\n

Judge Mason did not allow Bull to be photographed at his sentencing because of reports she had received about his mental health and drug and alcohol issues.<\/p>\n

Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The summary of facts said other similar groups were doing the same in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13735,95,13119,26701,1558,22947,1349,6147,1359,7557,32253,120429,209,9067,305,78,120430,51670,97879,120431,111,43,139,69,8465,8240,5161,1227,223,8229,113,210,416,4741],"class_list":["post-194113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-actions","tag-and","tag-assaults","tag-attackers","tag-been","tag-bull","tag-court","tag-crime","tag-described","tag-district","tag-ethan","tag-grindr","tag-group","tag-hate","tag-have","tag-in","tag-jeffs","tag-lured","tag-moloney","tag-montages","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-patrick","tag-posted","tag-sentenced","tag-tauranga","tag-the","tag-they","tag-thomas","tag-through","tag-video","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194113","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=194113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}