{"id":344622,"date":"2026-03-24T02:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T02:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/344622\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T02:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T02:40:08","slug":"christchurch-man-linked-to-religious-group-charged-with-rape-and-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/344622\/","title":{"rendered":"Christchurch man linked to religious group charged with rape and assault"},"content":{"rendered":"

NZ Herald<\/p>\n

24 Mar, 2026 12:31 AMQuick Read<\/p>\n

Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.Subscribe now<\/p>\n

\u200c<\/p>\n

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A 45-year-old man from a \u201creligious organisation\u201d that has a presence in New Zealand, Australia, Samoa and Fiji has been arrested and charged with sexual offending. <\/p>\n

\n Police said the man was due to appear in the Christchurch District Court this afternoon, charged with unlawful sexual connection, indecent assault, strangulation
\n and rape.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s arrest follows a number of allegations, and partner agencies are supporting those that have come forward,\u201d said Detective Senior Sergeant Colin Baillie.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is possible there may be other allegations that we are not yet aware of, and I strongly encourage any survivor to speak with us, should they wish to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NZ Herald 24 Mar, 2026 12:31 AMQuick Read Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require a Premium…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[141347,95,11924,17704,85,1558,13239,4487,2566,71,209,42,7055,5158,43,28703,4989,4494,34458,82649,5902,17703,1361,61,40,38,41,39,102,80],"class_list":["post-344622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-45yearold","tag-and","tag-arrested","tag-assault","tag-australia","tag-been","tag-charged","tag-christchurch","tag-fiji","tag-from","tag-group","tag-headlines","tag-linked","tag-man","tag-news","tag-offending","tag-organisation","tag-presence","tag-rape","tag-religious","tag-samoa","tag-sexual","tag-that","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344622","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=344622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}