{"id":448120,"date":"2026-05-27T18:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/448120\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T18:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:08:10","slug":"auckland-man-first-to-be-charged-under-new-stalking-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/448120\/","title":{"rendered":"Auckland man first to be charged under new stalking laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  [&amp;_p]:tit-sub-xl tit-sub-xl md:[&amp;_p]:d-tit-sub-xl md:d-tit-sub-xl mb-[1.3rem]\">An Auckland man is the first to be charged under new stalking and harassment laws, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.1news.co.nz\/2026\/05\/26\/police-say-we-could-have-done-better-as-new-stalking-laws-come-into-force\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">came into force yesterday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">The 39-year-old was due to appear in the Auckland District Court today on the new charges, police said today in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Acting director of prevention Inspector Natasha Allan today said the new police powers &#8220;support victims and intervene earlier to prevent behaviour from escalating&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">&#8220;This should send a clear message to both victims and offenders police will be enforcing these laws.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">\u201cWe now have stronger tools to hold offenders to account and we are, and will be, using them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">The Crimes Advocacy (Stalking and Harassment) Amendment Act introduced a standalone offence for stalking and harassment following years of advocacy from victim-survivors and campaigners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">Under the provisions of the law, police were allowed to issue a stalking and harassment notice at an early stage, warning an alleged offender their behaviour was unacceptable, and that continued conduct could lead to criminal charges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">If a person engaged in at least two specified acts within a two-year period, they could be charged directly with the new offence without a notice being issued first.<\/p>\n<p class=\"body-paragraph articleLinkText  lg mb-4\">The offence carried a maximum penalty of up to five years\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Auckland man is the first to be charged under new stalking and harassment laws, which came into&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-448120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-auckland","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448120","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=448120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}