{"id":342749,"date":"2026-03-22T21:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T21:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/342749\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T21:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T21:38:08","slug":"waikato-man-in-his-20s-jailed-for-months-long-sexual-relationship-with-pre-teen-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/342749\/","title":{"rendered":"Waikato man in his 20s jailed for months-long sexual relationship with pre-teen girl"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now, both the man and grandmother have been sentenced in the Tauranga District Court<\/a> for their roles related to the sexual abuse of the girl.<\/p>\n

According to the Crown summary of facts, the man would climb on top of a chair outside the bedroom before climbing in the open window.<\/p>\n

At one point during the relationship, the girl had been unwell and was taken to hospital; both the man and the grandmother accompanied her.<\/p>\n

The hospital made a note that the man was the girl\u2019s \u201cpartner\u201d.<\/p>\n

Later that month, text messages showed the girl had texted her grandmother asking if her \u201cbf\u201d could borrow money and asking her to \u201copen my window for my bf\u201d.<\/p>\n

The grandmother replied that it was already open, followed by, \u201csince when do you close it\u201d.<\/p>\n

When the police visited the grandmother, she said she did not think her granddaughter was in an \u201cintimate relationship with anyone\u201d, nor had she been in one previously, and that she had never seen her granddaughter with the defendant.<\/p>\n

She told police she wouldn\u2019t support her granddaughter being in a relationship until she was 16.<\/p>\n

\u2018You\u2019re the first person I\u2019ve fallen in love with in so f***en long\u2019: Man\u2019s messages to girl<\/p>\n

The man faced a charge of meeting a young person after grooming, which related to messages sent over the four months the pair were in an intimate relationship.<\/p>\n

He would use phrases such as \u201cI love you\u201d and \u201cyou are beautiful\u201d and would frequently tell the pre-teen girl he wanted her \u201ccuddles and kisses\u201d.<\/p>\n

He told her: \u201cYou\u2019re the first person I\u2019ve fallen in love with in so f***en long\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m pretty keen to stroll over tonight and come and get my kisses and cuddles beautiful\u201d.<\/p>\n

He would message her, asking her to open her window.<\/p>\n

A month after the messaging began, he told her he didn\u2019t want to go to a 21st, because he would rather be \u201ccuddled up\u201d with her.<\/p>\n

She told him to come and cuddle and about 20 minutes later, he messaged to say he was coming over.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe case was heard in the Tauranga District Court. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

The next month, she told him she was taking a pregnancy test, suspecting she was pregnant, but the following month, the girl said she suspected she had \u201cmiscarried\u201d.<\/p>\n

The summary also details a sexual encounter that the girl had filmed and messages about sexual acts, including references by the man to having rough sex and oral sex with the girl.<\/p>\n

Man\u2019s mother says he is \u2018limited intellectually\u2019<\/p>\n

Both defendants had earlier been given sentence indications by Judge William Lawson.<\/p>\n

The man, who is in his early 20s, was charged with meeting a young person following grooming, and two charges of sexual connection with a young person.<\/p>\n

The summary of facts states the pair were \u201cin an intimate relationship\u201d over a four month period.<\/p>\n

He also had charges related to the possession of firearms and ammunition.<\/p>\n

Judge Lawson gave an indication of three-and-a-half years\u2019 imprisonment for the sexual offending, with an uplift of 12 months for the firearms and ammunition charges, to reach an overall starting point of four-and-a-half years\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n

The man was given a 20% discount for his guilty plea.<\/p>\n

The man\u2019s lawyer, Racheal Raukawa, also sought a 20% discount for the man\u2019s youth and personal circumstances, including the man\u2019s neurological conditions.<\/p>\n

Judge Lawson said there wasn\u2019t clear evidence that the man had a mental age lower than his actual age.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is medical material which is the result of an EEG [electroencephalogram] examination, which suggests that there was a mildly abnormal EEG, but it\u2019s not clear from the material that I have seen exactly what that means,\u201d Judge Lawson said.<\/p>\n

Raukawa said a second EEG was needed, but there hadn\u2019t been enough time to have that done, nor to get expert evidence on the results of the first.<\/p>\n

Judge Lawson noted the man had achieved his Level 3 qualifications and had maintained employment.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s clear that you have the intellectual capacity to understand the nature and seriousness of the offending,\u201d Judge Lawson told the man.<\/p>\n

However, the man\u2019s mother had provided material that said her son was \u201climited intellectually\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe says that, in her view, the position is that you have always been very young for your age, and then she points to the EEG result as being indicative of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crown prosecutor Laurie McMaster said the offending didn\u2019t have the hallmarks of youthful impulsivity and also highlighted comments the man made to a pre-sentence report writer, in which he said it was a shame the relationship had ended, because it was the best he\u2019d had.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven after this matter progressing through the court system, the reality of it hasn\u2019t quite dawned on him yet,\u201d McMaster said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, he obviously does have some support from his family and from a letter from his mother, he does seem to have some prospects at getting meaningful employment if he chooses to turn his back on his criminal offending.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge decided to give a 5% discount for the man\u2019s youth, with his age falling on the cusp of where a discount for this can be given.<\/p>\n

He gave the man an additional 3% for his neurological issues, as well as a 7% discount for abuse and neglect he had suffered in his childhood.<\/p>\n

Raukawa provided information about the courses the man had done, as evidence of his prospects of rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not someone who has sat and done nothing,\u201d Judge Lawson said, and gave him a 5% discount for rehabilitative prospects.<\/p>\n

He was also given a four-and-a-half month discount for the time he spent on restrictive bail.<\/p>\n

That resulted in an end sentence of 28 months\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n

Grandmother had been a \u2018very good mother\u2019 previously<\/p>\n

The girl\u2019s grandmother faced charges that related to her failing to protect her granddaughter and making a false statement to the police.<\/p>\n

She was given a 35% discount for her plea and some other related matters.<\/p>\n

While there had been some concerning factors, including the false statement, the judge said a letter the woman had written led him to conclude she was genuinely remorseful, and he gave her a 5% discount for remorse.<\/p>\n

Her lawyer, Scott Mills, also provided material from another family member that suggested she had been a \u201cvery good mother over the lion\u2019s share of her life\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, the judge said Mills was essentially arguing for a good-character discount, which wasn\u2019t available to the woman because of her previous convictions, which included things such as cultivation of cannabis, excess breath alcohol, resisting police and disorderly behaviour.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may be that you were a good mother to your other children, but you certainly let this victim down,\u201d Judge Lawson said.<\/p>\n

The woman was given a 40% discount overall, which resulted in an end sentence of 21 months\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n

The Crown did not oppose that being commuted to a sentence of home detention, and the judge considered that, given the offending was \u201cfactually specific\u201d, she did not pose a risk to the wider public.<\/p>\n

She was sentenced to 10 months\u2019 home detention.<\/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":"Now, both the man and grandmother have been sentenced in the Tauranga District Court for their roles related…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[120290,9092,2511,868,181,8912,2082,6868,293,78,14641,5158,83935,111,43,139,69,28703,182939,520,17703,427,1961,1524,1455,102],"class_list":["post-342749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-20s","tag-against","tag-child","tag-deals","tag-details","tag-distressing","tag-for","tag-girl","tag-his","tag-in","tag-jailed","tag-man","tag-monthslong","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-offending","tag-preteen","tag-relationship","tag-sexual","tag-story","tag-this","tag-waikato","tag-warning","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342749","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=342749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}