{"id":426539,"date":"2026-05-14T01:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T01:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/426539\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T01:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T01:36:11","slug":"billy-macfarlane-founder-of-rehabilitation-service-charged-with-assaulting-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/426539\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Macfarlane founder of rehabilitation service charged with assaulting woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Billy<\/p>\n

\nBilly Macfarlane.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Cole Eastham-Farrelly\n<\/p>\n

The founder of a prisoner reintegration service has been charged with assaulting a woman who was on bail.<\/p>\n

Billy Macfarlane says the allegations are “a whole lot of lies”, and that he “never assaulted anybody”.<\/p>\n

RNZ earlier revealed Macfarlane, the Tikanga Aroro Charitable Trust general manager and founder of the P\u016bwhakamua rehabilitation service, faced allegations in relation to a woman who was on bail.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, a police spokesperson said a 62-year-old man had been charged with assault on a person in a family relationship.<\/p>\n

He appeared in court on Tuesday, and is due to reappear next month.<\/p>\n

Do you know more? Email sam.sherwood@rnz.co.nz<\/p>\n

Court documents seen by RNZ allege Macfarlane assaulted the woman on 26 February. The charge carries a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment.<\/p>\n

Corrections, which contracted the trust to operate P\u016bwhakamua, earlier told RNZ it had terminated the arrangement after they were notified of “serious” allegations.<\/p>\n

Corrections began funding the service in November 2022. Since then, it had contributed around $3.9 million in ongoing funding, with a current agreement to fund $800,000 per year until 2027. About $880,000 of the $3.9m was part of a conditional grant for infrastructure upgrades.<\/p>\n

Approached for comment on the charges, Macfarlane said he was going to take it to trial, saying he “never assaulted anybody” calling the allegations “a whole lot of lies”.<\/p>\n

He claimed the woman, who he was supporting, made a “false allegation” after he warned her that if her drug use did not stop he was going to move her.<\/p>\n

“The whole summary of facts is a lie, not just that I assaulted her, the whole turn of events, she’s lied about the whole lot,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The truth will come out… There’s a story to be told here, and you watch how this unfolds.”<\/p>\n

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":"Billy Macfarlane. Photo: RNZ \/ Cole Eastham-Farrelly The founder of a prisoner reintegration service has been charged with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":["post-426539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426539","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=426539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}