They date back to 1999 when he was convicted of receiving property ($500-$5000), cultivating cannabis in 2000, driving while his licence was suspended or revoked in 2013 and male assaults female in 2016.<\/p>\n
The decision stated that when the Teacher\u2019s Council approved Bentson\u2019s application for registration in 2018, it advised his convictions were concerning and encouraged him \u201cto exercise greater care in the future as further offences will be viewed very seriously\u201d and may call into question whether he continued to meet the criteria for certification.<\/p>\n
After his most recent convictions, a hearing was held before the tribunal and submissions were made by Bentson, his partner, and the deputy principal at the school at which he teaches. <\/p>\n
The tribunal said it was \u201csatisfied that there are factors that cogently militated against cancellation of the respondent\u2019s registration\u201d.<\/p>\n
This included that Bentson was passionate about teaching and had a strong desire to remain part of the profession. <\/p>\n
He has also undertaken steps to rehabilitate, including completing an anger management programme and attending regular counselling to develop emotional regulation strategies.<\/p>\n
Kahukura Bentson (right) represented New Zealand in boxing. NZPA \/ Wayne Drought<\/p>\n
The school at which Bentson was employed supported him, and he was candid about his offending, the decision stated. <\/p>\n
It stated the recent offending occurred in 2020, a year that Bentson described as being \u201cexceptionally difficult\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy life now is vastly different from the turmoil I was in then,\u201d he told the tribunal. <\/p>\n
According to court documents, Bentson assaulted the woman after an argument.<\/p>\n
She warned that she would phone the police and he twisted her arm and took the phone from her.<\/p>\n
After she grabbed his phone, he lunged towards her, picking her up and slamming her head-first into the carpet floor.<\/p>\n
She suffered a mild concussion, a swollen neck and a cut lip.<\/p>\n
In other incidents, he picked up a knife and held it in front of himself before picking up a patu and waving it around.<\/p>\n
A person present at the time felt scared and told a relative of Bentson\u2019s, who then confronted him.<\/p>\n
Bentson stated he had been having bad thoughts and that he wanted to hurt people, and that he was going to get a gun from his father\u2019s house and use it to shoot them.<\/p>\n
The other conviction related to Bentson going to a property from which he was trespassed. While there, he gave the occupant a trespass notice and left.<\/p>\n
The sentencing notes said Bentson had been \u201ccontributing in a worthwhile way\u201d in his role as a teacher. <\/p>\n
The court ruled he was unlikely to offend in this way again. He was sentenced to home detention.<\/p>\n
In the tribunal\u2019s decision, it censured Bentson and imposed conditions on his registration, including that he provide a copy of the decision to future employers for three years, work with a mentor and undertake professional development.<\/p>\n
An annotation to the register would be in place for three years.<\/p>\n
Brianna McIlraith is a Queenstown-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the lower South Island. She has been a journalist since 2018 and has had a strong interest in business and financial journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the decision, tribunal deputy chairman Nicholas Chisnall censured Bentson after giving \u201cserious contemplation\u201d to deregistering him. Bentson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,25445,17704,33524,1558,224059,13619,224060,35838,2082,22403,106,8454,296,193328,111,43,139,69,1118,75839,22309,41401,7574,223,1354,5816],"class_list":["post-438191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-allowed","tag-assault","tag-avoids","tag-been","tag-bentson","tag-convictions","tag-deregistration","tag-floor","tag-for","tag-grabbed","tag-head","tag-including","tag-into","tag-kahukura","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-registration","tag-retain","tag-slammed","tag-teacher","tag-the","tag-woman","tag-womans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438191","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=438191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}