The judge also noted the obvious elements of grooming. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere can be no doubt in my view that your gifts for the victim were held out in exchange for sexual return,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
His victim, who finally disclosed the offending to a family member in 2022, suffered poor mental health, was impacted emotionally and psychologically, and, as an adult, had struggled with relationships, the court heard. <\/p>\n
After the disclosure, police interviewed Lazaridis first in 2022 and again in 2024. <\/p>\n
In 2023, during a search of Lazaridis\u2019 house, his computer was seized and found to contain objectionable publications, some of the most serious kind.<\/p>\n
Lazaridis was found guilty at trial of four charges of unlawful sexual connection and six charges of committing an indecent act. <\/p>\n
He also admitted three charges of possession of an objectionable publication, relating to the material found on his computer. <\/p>\n
Identifying the aggravating features, the judge referred to the victim\u2019s age and the age difference between the pair, noting Lazaridis had breached the teenager\u2019s trust. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat marks this sexual offending is its ongoing and repeated nature over three years, with the associated breach of trust with a teenager who was 50 years younger than you,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
In mitigation, the judge noted Lazaridis hadn\u2019t offended since immigrating from Eastern Europe, a period of 60 years. <\/p>\n
Today\u2019s hearing considered how to deal with Lazaridis\u2019 health issues, including arthritis and a breathing machine he used at night. He also required help with showering.<\/p>\n
The court heard an electronically monitored sentence was problematic because Lazaridis still posed a risk to children, and swelling in his lower legs made it impossible to wear a bracelet.<\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Tamara Jenkin told the court Lazaridis\u2019 health needs could be accommodated in the prison\u2019s high dependency unit. <\/p>\n
Defence lawyer Sonia Thistoll said Corrections had told her the unit had a long waiting list, with no guarantees her client would be admitted to it.<\/p>\n
Judge Davidson said while Lazaridis\u2019 health problems could be managed within prison, he acknowledged that, given the defendant\u2019s health and age, prison would be harsh for him. <\/p>\n
Wellington District court heard an electronically monitored sentence was problematic because George Lazaridis still posed a risk to children. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n
Adopting the Crown\u2019s suggested starting point of five and a half years, slightly higher than what the defence had sought, the judge jailed Lazaridis for four years and three months, having applied discounts for his guilty pleas to the possession of objectionable publication charges, previous good character and the impact of prison on the pensioner. <\/p>\n
After the sentence was handed down, Lazaridis stood and glared at the judge before being helped from the court. <\/p>\n
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sexual attraction developed that ranged from low-level touching to mutual oral sex and continued for three years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1903,26673,160169,28022,28246,25207,51467,56270,2082,12856,9832,1334,14641,26588,160170,111,43,139,69,1118,1523,19525,5763,7680,15386,1516,160171,5163,4054,1865,57698,52,102,1530],"class_list":{"0":"post-288020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-abuse","9":"tag-abusing","10":"tag-arthritic","11":"tag-arthritis","12":"tag-begin","13":"tag-corrections","14":"tag-courtroom","15":"tag-crippled","16":"tag-for","17":"tag-george","18":"tag-helped","19":"tag-jail","20":"tag-jailed","21":"tag-junior","22":"tag-lazaridis","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-newzealand","26":"tag-nz","27":"tag-of","28":"tag-over","29":"tag-pensioner","30":"tag-sentence","31":"tag-sex","32":"tag-sexually","33":"tag-staff","34":"tag-stooped","35":"tag-teen","36":"tag-teenager","37":"tag-today","38":"tag-walker","39":"tag-wellington","40":"tag-with","41":"tag-years"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288020","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=288020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}