wept during his sentencing hearing<\/a> last year. The court heard he was \u201cgenuinely remorseful\u201d, had been attending church with his wife and was no longer watching pornographic videos.<\/p>\nJudge Kathryn Maxwell said the \u201cvoyeuristic offending\u201d involved a \u201cgross invasion of privacy\u201d, with the unsuspecting victims captured visibly or partially nude in footage.<\/p>\n
The judge dismissed the man\u2019s application for permanent name suppression, ruling it did not meet the high bar of extreme hardship. <\/p>\n
And given the prolific nature of the offending, she said other victims may come forward if the man\u2019s name was revealed. <\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The man appealed the name suppression decision during a hearing in March in the High Court at Auckland. Photo \/ Jason Oxenham<\/p>\n
However, the man immediately appealed the decision, which went to a hearing in the High Court at Auckland in March this year before Justice Dani Gardiner. <\/p>\n
The man\u2019s lawyer, Daniel Schellenberg, argued the district court judge failed to give sufficient weight to the impact of publication on the man\u2019s victims, his wife, his mother and himself. <\/p>\n
The wife submitted that publication of her husband\u2019s name would cause \u201cextreme financial and emotional hardship\u201d on her and her family.<\/p>\n
The wife described the physical strain she was under, working seven days a week with a heavy commute. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe describes her emotional strain and the devastation her husband\u2019s actions have caused her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schellenberg also claimed the man\u2019s mother would suffer extreme hardship should her son be identified. She feared \u201csocial isolation\u201d from her communities and reputational damage to her and her family. <\/p>\n
It was submitted that the man\u2019s own rehabilitation efforts \u2013 which included sessions with a clinical psychologist to address the \u201cdrivers of his offending\u201d \u2013 would be set back should his name be published.<\/p>\n
However, Justice Gardiner found the impacts on the man and his wife did not reach the required threshold. <\/p>\n
While sympathetic to the wife\u2019s situation, the judge said the outcomes she described were natural consequences of her husband\u2019s offending. <\/p>\n
The judge found there was \u201cno evidential basis\u201d to conclude the man\u2019s victims would suffer extreme hardship if he was identified.<\/p>\n
Nor was the threshold reached for the man\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n
The judge said there were \u201cstrong factors\u201d counting against permanent name suppression. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe offending was serious and prolific, involving a gross invasion of the privacy of 62 individual victims, over nearly 18 months.\u201d<\/p>\n
Secondly, naming the man provided the opportunity for 59 unidentified women to realise they were victims. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a strong interest in [the man\u2019s] offending being made public so that members of the public can make informed decisions about their interactions with [the man].\u201d<\/p>\n
Justice Gardiner ruled the public interest should prevail and denied the man\u2019s appeal. <\/p>\n
However, the Herald learned yesterday he has now filed a further appeal with the Court of Appeal, therefore his identity still cannot be revealed. <\/p>\n
Newmarket Business Association chief executive Mark Knoff-Thomas acknowledged the distress this offending had caused and extended his sympathy to victims. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe actions of the offender represent a heinous breach of trust and are completely inconsistent with the standards of privacy, integrity and respect that customers have a right to expect when visiting a store.\u201d<\/p>\n
Incidents of this nature were extremely rare, Knoff-Thomas said.<\/p>\n
Retailers worked hard to maintain safe, welcoming environments, and the business association had invested heavily in its own security team to protect shoppers. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe fully support the lifting of name suppression as a critical step toward accountability and support the growing calls for stronger laws to deter these intrusive acts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lane Nichols is Auckland Desk Editor and a senior journalist for the New Zealand Herald with more than 20 years\u2019 experience in the industry.<\/p>\n
Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Only three of his victims have been identified by police. The offending was between June 2023 and October…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21045,14229,6183,15124,51175,16840,4748,78,21418,809,9523,5836,5158,13617,111,31915,43,139,69,112922,46986,9095,544,2735,653,13618,61,6382,6123,1299,2248],"class_list":["post-490269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-above","tag-changing","tag-dozens","tag-fight","tag-fights","tag-filmed","tag-hiding","tag-in","tag-intimate","tag-keep","tag-longrunning","tag-lost","tag-man","tag-name","tag-new-zealand","tag-newmarket","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-recordings","tag-rooms","tag-secret","tag-some","tag-store","tag-stores","tag-suppression","tag-to","tag-took","tag-while","tag-who","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490269","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=490269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}