{"id":412754,"date":"2026-05-05T11:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T11:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/412754\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T11:03:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T11:03:10","slug":"nelson-rape-mohammed-aziz-who-fled-the-country-jailed-for-nine-years-after-years-of-abuse-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/412754\/","title":{"rendered":"Nelson rape: Mohammed Aziz who fled the country jailed for nine years after years of abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

First published on \"NZ<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Mohammed<\/p>\n

\nMohammed Aziz has been sentenced in the Nelson District Court to nine years in prison for raping a teenage girl twice weekly for almost six years.
\nPhoto: Open Justice\/Tracy Neal\n<\/p>\n

Warning: This story discusses details of rape and sexual assault and may be upsetting to some readers.<\/p>\n

A teenage girl who sought a shoulder to cry on after breaking up with her boyfriend was then raped by the man consoling her.<\/p>\n

The moment was a turning point in the teen’s life, which for almost six years had been blackened by the rapes committed regularly by Mohammed Aziz.<\/p>\n

The 57-year-old was sentenced in the Nelson District Court today to nine years in jail on a representative charge of rape and a charge of possession of an objectionable publication.<\/p>\n

He was charged after returning to New Zealand more than a year after fleeing when police began an investigation.<\/p>\n

Judge Tony Snell cut him little slack in the sternly delivered sentence watched by the victim while embraced in the hug of a support person.<\/p>\n

“I can say little more than you have physically and psychologically harmed her in the worst ways possible,” Judge Snell said.<\/p>\n

“It’s harm that will go on and on for years to come.”<\/p>\n

Monument to ‘incredible courage’<\/p>\n

The teen’s support person said in a victim impact statement she read to the court, that she hoped the teen could look back on this day as a monument to her incredible courage.<\/p>\n

It followed the teen’s own statement, in which she described the deep, ongoing trauma, and what it was like being a child “tip-toeing through landmines”, always holding her breath.<\/p>\n

“I learned how to read a room before I learned to read a book,” she said.<\/p>\n

Aziz stifled sobs from where he sat nearby in the dock, listening to the teen speak of the grief at having lost the person she might have become.<\/p>\n

“Your body remembers what your mind tries to forget.<\/p>\n

“Some days I don’t feel like a person – just a body moving through the hours,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"Mohammed<\/p>\n

\nMohammed Aziz was sentenced to nine years in jail on a representative charge of rape and a charge of possession of an objectionable publication.
\nPhoto: Open Justice\/Tracy Neal\n<\/p>\n

The break-up<\/p>\n

The court heard the girl was upset she had broken up with her boyfriend and confided in Aziz, a man known to her, about what had happened.<\/p>\n

He suggested they go to a room to talk about it further, to prevent others from hearing.<\/p>\n

As she sat on a bed, she told him how sad and heartbroken she was.<\/p>\n

He comforted her by hugging her and rubbing her back, then removed her clothing and raped her.<\/p>\n

Later that evening the teen emailed her school teacher, asking him if she could talk to him about something “serious and important”.<\/p>\n

The police were notified and she disclosed historical sexual violations, later confirmed as having occurred regularly for almost six years.<\/p>\n

She also told police Aziz had taken pictures and videos of her in the shower.<\/p>\n

Days later, as the victim’s mother messaged the man, he told her he had “found naked images of the victim” in a folder in his phone.<\/p>\n

After his home was searched in April 2024, he gave a statement to the police but denied any sexual activity took place.<\/p>\n

He provided a DNA sample to police, but the next day he drove to Christchurch and left the country.<\/p>\n

Clothing worn by the victim at the time of the offending was seized and subsequently forensically examined.<\/p>\n

Aziz’s DNA was found on the clothing and on the victim after a medical examination.<\/p>\n

He was arrested at Auckland Airport on his return in August 2025, more than a year after he fled, Crown prosecutor Sophie O’Donoghue said.<\/p>\n

“This was a long period of absence in which he prioritised his own needs,” she said.<\/p>\n

The Crown, in seeking a 12-year prison starting point, pointed to the frequency of rapes over a long time and the ongoing premeditation involved.<\/p>\n

O’Donoghue said Aziz was not entitled to any discount for remorse because he had minimised what occurred and insulted the victim by claiming he had raped her “only once”.<\/p>\n

She said Aziz said in a pre-sentence report he intended to undertake rehabilitation, but his comments to the report writer “had not scratched the surface of the offending”.<\/p>\n

No ‘causal connection’<\/p>\n

Defence lawyer Amanda Godwin achieved the 25 percent discount sought for Aziz’s guilty plea, which spared the victim from a trial.<\/p>\n

She said Aziz wanted to engage in a sex offender’s rehabilitation programme, had expressed shame and insight into the harm caused to the victim, and had returned to New Zealand to face the charges.<\/p>\n

Judge Snell refused to accept a causal connection between Aziz’s offending and claims he had been raised in an environment where he suffered abuse.<\/p>\n

“Can you explain how something which happened 40 years earlier coincided with him repeatedly raping this girl?” he asked.<\/p>\n

Judge Snell said in setting a 12-year prison starting point that Aziz’s possession of the objectionable material was an aggravating factor, and he was sentenced to nine months in prison for that, to be served concurrently.<\/p>\n

Guilty plea discount ‘generous’<\/p>\n

He declined any discount for the potential impact of imprisonment on Aziz’s child.<\/p>\n

Judge Snell said Aziz had no hesitation abandoning the child when he fled New Zealand.<\/p>\n

While he may not be able to have any relationship with the child in the foreseeable future, “that does not appear to be a bad thing”, Judge Snell said.<\/p>\n

He said in arriving at a nine-year prison term, the 25 percent discount for Aziz’s guilty plea was “generous”.<\/p>\n

A protection order sought by the victim was granted and Aziz was automatically registered as a child sex offender.<\/p>\n

His release date would be set by the Parole Board.<\/p>\n

Where to get help:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First published on Mohammed Aziz has been sentenced in the Nelson District Court to nine years in prison…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412755,"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-412754","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\/412754","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=412754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}