{"id":466870,"date":"2026-06-08T13:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T13:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/466870\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T13:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T13:43:14","slug":"man-arrested-and-charged-following-havelock-norths-guthrie-park-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/466870\/","title":{"rendered":"Man arrested and charged following Havelock North’s Guthrie Park assault"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

\nA 35-year-old was found and arrested without incident in Picton on Monday, police say.
\nPhoto: RNZ\n<\/p>\n

Police have arrested and charged a man following an assault at Guthrie Park<\/a> in the Hawke’s Bay town of Havelock North on Friday.<\/p>\n

The 35-year-old was found and arrested without incident in Picton on Monday, police said.<\/p>\n

He was due to appear in the Blenheim District Court on Tuesday, facing “three serious charges” relating to the incident.<\/p>\n

Police confirmed the man was facing charges of unlawful sexual connection, abduction for sex and commission of a crime with a firearm.<\/p>\n

It was previously reported that the alleged assault involved a stranger approaching a 12-year-old child.<\/p>\n

Police have opposed the man’s bail.<\/p>\n

Detective Inspector James Keene said police were providing ongoing support to the victim and their family following “quite a distressing incident”.<\/p>\n

“I want to acknowledge the work of police staff across the Eastern, Wellington and Tasman districts for their collaborative work and swift apprehension of this person.”<\/p>\n

Police were continuing to conduct reassurance patrols in the area surrounding Guthrie Park in Havelock North, Keene said.<\/p>\n

Police wanted to thank the public for information about the incident, and for their ongoing support, he said.<\/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":"A 35-year-old was found and arrested without incident in Picton on Monday, police say. Photo: RNZ Police have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305856,"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-466870","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\/466870","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=466870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}