{"id":416401,"date":"2026-05-07T14:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/416401\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T14:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:56:12","slug":"rotorua-businessman-charged-with-neglecting-vulnerable-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/416401\/","title":{"rendered":"Rotorua businessman charged with neglecting vulnerable woman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">The charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">The Rotorua Daily Post understands the woman died, but the man has not been charged in relation to her death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">The case was called before Judge Greg Hollister-Jones yesterday,  where the man advised he still did not have a lawyer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">Judge Hollister-Jones noted there had been several adjournments during the past year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">He said there was a relationship breakdown between the man and his first lawyer, the man did not sign terms of engagement with a second lawyer and three other duty solicitors had tried to help him fill out a legal aid form, in some cases spending several hours with him, but were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">Crown prosecutor Laurie McMaster urged Judge Hollister-Jones to appoint a lawyer for the man because the case was \u201climping along\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">If a lawyer was appointed for the man, she said they could progress to a trial and \u201cthis circus ends\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">Judge Hollister-Jones said a lawyer would be appointed by the court but the option remained open for him to pay for his own lawyer or accept a lawyer through the legal aid process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\">The case would be recalled on June 17.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wrLLDwyWye\" style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/author\/kelly-makiha\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kelly Makiha<\/a> is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. The Rotorua Daily Post understands the woman died,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,50559,1558,6255,536,13239,113068,12513,42919,132868,111,43,139,69,675,29658,1327,199,36008,102,1354],"class_list":["post-416401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-allege","tag-been","tag-businessman","tag-care","tag-charged","tag-counts","tag-failed","tag-neglect","tag-neglecting","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-police","tag-proper","tag-rotorua","tag-take","tag-vulnerable","tag-with","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416401","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=416401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}