Mitchell<\/a> also declined to comment further.<\/p>\nIn 2023, the man pleaded guilty to having a sexual connection with the teen, and indecent communication, which included sending photos of his genitals.<\/p>\n
A judge at the time said a conviction would be a \u201ccrushing blow\u201d to his future prospects, finding that \u201cthe gravity of the offending viewed as a whole is relatively low\u201d.<\/p>\n
The man was granted a discharge without conviction as well as permanent name suppression.<\/p>\n
The court ordered an emotional harm payment to the victim of $2000.<\/p>\n
Since the February story on his role at a primary school, the man has been removed as a staff member from the school\u2019s website. <\/p>\n
The Herald contacted the school about his apparent departure, but the principal did not respond to a request to confirm the man was no longer an employee.<\/p>\n
A Ministry of Education spokesperson said the man\u2019s employer would be best placed to comment.<\/p>\n
The man\u2019s lawyer was also approached for comment.<\/p>\n
\u2018Parents would boycott\u2019<\/p>\n
The victim\u2019s mother earlier told the Herald that parents should have the right to know that he was working there. <\/p>\n
\u201cThose girls and young women and their parents will not be aware of it, so they can\u2019t take measures to protect them.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said if the school knew about the man\u2019s history and still employed him it was \u201cabhorrent\u201d.<\/p>\n
Her daughter, she said, had now given up on justice and felt that \u201csportsmen get away with things\u201d. <\/p>\n
In her opinion: \u201cThe sport and their success in sport comes ahead of the safety of young women and girls.\u201d<\/p>\n
The success of an individual\u2019s career, she said, should never take precedence over the rights of victims.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey should know, parents should be given the opportunity to make informed choices about their children\u2019s safety.\u201d <\/p>\n
Earlier, the ministry\u2018s operations and integration acting leader Julia Hardacre said school boards had a legal and non-negotiable obligation to ensure every person they employed was safe to work with children.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis includes completing full safety checks under the Children\u2019s Act 2014 \u2013 such as identity verification, police vetting, reference checks and rigorous risk assessments.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny past behaviour involving a young person must be treated with the utmost seriousness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Katie Harris is an Auckland-based journalist who covers issues such as sexual assault, workplace misconduct, media, crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2020.<\/p>\n
Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cEnsuring children are safe is an absolute priority for school boards and all educators \u2013 there is no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13236,19340,5811,49638,28953,163104,2740,71,6868,1019,2514,10005,68601,2250,39937,111,43,139,529,69,62511,6177,5196,4062,7680,15386,1516,55629,540,1299,102,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-366638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-15yearold","9":"tag-abused","10":"tag-admitted","11":"tag-athlete","12":"tag-employed","13":"tag-exnz","14":"tag-former","15":"tag-from","16":"tag-girl","17":"tag-international","18":"tag-island","19":"tag-list","20":"tag-listed","21":"tag-longer","22":"tag-minor","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-newzealand","26":"tag-north","27":"tag-nz","28":"tag-offence","29":"tag-primary","30":"tag-removed","31":"tag-school","32":"tag-sex","33":"tag-sexually","34":"tag-staff","35":"tag-staffer","36":"tag-where","37":"tag-who","38":"tag-with","39":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366638","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=366638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}