{"id":348246,"date":"2026-03-26T04:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T04:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/348246\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T04:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T04:37:09","slug":"former-anglican-priest-jonathan-kirkpatrick-sexually-violated-teen-at-canterbury-bach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/348246\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Anglican priest Jonathan Kirkpatrick sexually violated teen at Canterbury bach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4MO3TR4_image_crop_107958\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"Christchurch Court building\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Nate McKinnon\n<\/p>\n<p>Former Anglican priest Jonathan Kirkpatrick can now be revealed as the man who sexually violated a teenager at his Canterbury bach over 30 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The 68-year-old was last week <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/590207\/man-found-guilty-of-sexually-assaulting-teen-at-his-bach-over-30-years-ago\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">found guilty<\/a> of violating the victim when the teenager was so intoxicated he thought he might have been drugged.<\/p>\n<p>Kirkpatrick&#8217;s name remained secret following the trial as his lawyer indicated he might seek permanent suppression.<\/p>\n<p>However, the interim order expired at 4pm Thursday without an application for permanent name suppression.<\/p>\n<p>At the time of the offending Kirkpatrick was vicar at St Michael and All Angels in Christchurch.<\/p>\n<p>He would later go on to be dean at St Paul&#8217;s Cathedral in Dunedin for five years until 2001.<\/p>\n<p>Kirkpatrick was jailed for more than three years in 2011 for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/87589\/former-boss-jailed-for-stealing-from-aut\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stealing more than $665,000<\/a> from Auckland University of Technology, where he had worked as chief executive of its Business Innovation Centre.<\/p>\n<p>He remains in custody ahead of sentencing for the sexual assault.<\/p>\n<p>A jury unanimously found him guilty last Friday following a week-long trial.<\/p>\n<p>The victim, who was about 18 at the time of the attack, told the jury that when he was a teenager he would regularly meet with Kirkpatrick after school to smoke marijuana at his house.<\/p>\n<p>The victim knew Kirkpatrick was gay but had no concerns his motivations were sexual until the night of the attack.<\/p>\n<p>The pair drank alcohol and smoked cannabis at Kirkpatrick&#8217;s bach in Lake Coleridge on the night of the attack.<\/p>\n<p>The younger man said he became so intoxicated he was put to bed by Kirkpatrick, but woke to find the then-priest violating him.<\/p>\n<p>The victim did not report the assault to police until 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutor Penny Brown said by that time the man&#8217;s life had derailed and he was due to be sentenced for serious offending of his own.<\/p>\n<p>The victim said he had decided to report the assault after he encountered people in prison who had also been abused and had benefited from talking to others.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/radionz.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=211a938dcf3e634ba2427dde9&amp;id=b3d362e693\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: RNZ \/ Nate McKinnon Former Anglican priest Jonathan Kirkpatrick can now be revealed as the man who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-348246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348246","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=348246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}