{"id":267636,"date":"2026-02-04T18:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T18:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/267636\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T18:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T18:51:15","slug":"serial-rapist-malcolm-rewa-admits-another-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/267636\/","title":{"rendered":"Serial rapist Malcolm Rewa admits another attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jessica Hopkins and Sam Sherwood of RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n

Serial rapist Malcolm Rewa has admitted to sexually attacking another woman.<\/p>\n

Rewa is\u00a0serving a life sentence in prison\u00a0after being\u00a0found guilty of the 1992 murder of Papatoetoe woman Susan Burdett\u00a0in 2019.<\/p>\n

He was already serving a sentence of preventive detention with a minimum non-parole period of 22 years, having being convicted of sexual attacks on 25 women.<\/p>\n

Teina Pora was\u00a0wrongfully convicted of Burdett’s rape and murder in 1994, found guilty again at a retrial in 2000, but eventually the convictions were quashed by the Privy Council in 2004.<\/p>\n

Appearing via video link at the High Court in Auckland on Wednesday, Rewa pled guilty to one charge of sexual violation by rape that dating back to 18 June 1988.<\/p>\n

His lawyer Mark Jepson said his client was not seeking name continued name suppression.<\/p>\n

Rewa is due to be sentenced on 17 April, 2026.<\/p>\n

Detective Inspector Scott Beard earlier confirmed to RNZ police had charged a man over a historical stranger sexual assault in Auckland during the late 1980s.<\/p>\n

“An investigation was carried out at the time when the alleged rape occurred in Onehunga on 18 June 1988.<\/p>\n

“Enquiries available to detectives at the time were unable to identify the perpetrator.”<\/p>\n

In May last year the complainant contacted police to review her case.<\/p>\n

“This was assigned to an investigator in the Auckland City Adult Sexual Assault Team.<\/p>\n

“Police have since charged a 72-year-old man with rape.”<\/p>\n

Beard was unable to go into the specifics of the 2025 enquiries given court proceedings were under way.<\/p>\n

“However, it is pleasing that we can bring this matter to the courts on behalf of the complainant, given there is no statute of limitations on this sort of offending.”<\/p>\n

Failed appeal<\/p>\n

Rewa fought for a retrial of his conviction with the Court of Appeal, which was dismissed in January 2023.<\/p>\n

Rewa’s lawyers had argued his trial lawyer, Paul Chambers, was “incompetent”.<\/p>\n

They also argued a witness, whose name and other details have been suppressed by the court, and who was in a sexual relationship with Susan Burdett, had motive to kill her.<\/p>\n

After failing to have his conviction overturned Rewa later applied to appeal in the Supreme Court, calling his trial a miscarriage of justice.<\/p>\n

A decision from the Supreme Court said his appeal was filed nine months late, but due to the extensive material to consider, this was allowed.<\/p>\n

However, his appeal has been dismissed as the Supreme Court said there was no risk of a miscarriage of justice.<\/p>\n

Teina Pora was wrongly imprisoned for 20 years for the rape and murder of Burdett.<\/p>\n

Pora was convicted in 1994, found guilty again at a retrial in 2000, but eventually the convictions were quashed by the Privy Council in 2004.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jessica Hopkins and Sam Sherwood of RNZ Serial rapist Malcolm Rewa has admitted to sexually attacking another…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-267636","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267636","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=267636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}