{"id":55809,"date":"2025-10-02T07:18:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T07:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/55809\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T07:18:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T07:18:07","slug":"jessie-morgans-sex-with-an-underage-teen-leaves-a-trail-of-despair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/55809\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessie Morgan\u2019s sex with an underage teen leaves a trail of despair"},"content":{"rendered":"

The jury<\/a> acquitted him of all charges he defended. <\/p>\n

At his sentencing on the sexual connection charge, the mother read a statement on behalf of herself and her daughter<\/a>, in which she said the girl, who has automatic name suppression, was now a different person. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a young age, [she] was a warm, caring, kind, and lovely girl. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe was always smiling with an infectious sense of humour … never taking life too seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

But then she met Morgan. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe actions of Jessie Morgan have impacted all [areas] of her development.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watching her struggle with the trauma and to function at times was \u201cone of the most challenging things we have ever had to deal with\u201d, the woman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing our daughter disappear and become severely unwell was devastating.\u201d<\/p>\n

She lost trust in people and struggled to be around men.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were times when she couldn\u2019t eat, could not sleep, she woke up with nightmares … and began having severe anxiety.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe no longer felt safe in her own body. She wanted the pain to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, her daughter\u2019s biggest driver in coming forward to the police was to ensure that such incidents would not happen to anybody else.<\/p>\n

Crown prosecutor Raewyn Greenhalgh suggested a starting point of two to three years\u2019 jail, and urged the judge to limit Morgan\u2019s guilty plea discount, because the victim and her family still had to endure a trial.<\/p>\n

A pre-sentence report did not recommend an end sentence of home detention because of reports of family harm incidents, so Greenhalgh pushed for a short term of imprisonment.<\/p>\n

She said Morgan had more life experience than the victim at the time of the offending.<\/p>\n

Impulsive and opportunistic<\/p>\n

Defence counsel Nadine Baier disputed that her client had exerted any sexual pressure on the victim to the extent that it would be an aggravating feature.<\/p>\n

However, she accepted the impact of the offending on her.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t shy away from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baier suggested a starting point of two years and two months, while reminding the judge that her client had offered to plead guilty to the charge before trial, in December 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very well known [to the Crown] that he accepted having sex [with the victim] knowing that she was under 16,\u201d <\/p>\n

She pushed for a 20% discount for Morgan\u2019s guilty plea. <\/p>\n

Baier said Morgan \u201cwasn\u2019t overly sophisticated\u201d for his age at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis actions can be categorised as impulsive, opportunistic, and with little consequential thought at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019d written a brief letter of remorse, which he had struggled with, as he had been acquitted of the other charges and then had to come to terms with his guilty plea \u201cin his own mind\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

Morgan has been with his current partner for \u201csome years\u201d, and the couple were expecting a child. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe is showing the court that he has been able to maintain that without any issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baier submitted that an end sentence of two years of imprisonment, or less, could be reached, once all the mitigating features were taken into account, and community detention and intensive supervision could then be considered. <\/p>\n

However, responding to Morgan\u2019s letter, Greenhalgh said it focused more on how the offending had affected him, rather than the victim.<\/p>\n

Judge Marshall said that, given Morgan\u2019s age, he was \u201cmore savvy about things\u201d than the victim.<\/p>\n

He said it took a great deal of courage for the victim\u2019s mother to read her statement to the court.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really brings home offending of this kind. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t just affect one person; the whole family, community, as was rightly expressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge took a starting point of two years and six months\u2019 imprisonment before allowing a 20% discount for his plea, 15% for his youth, and 5% for his upbringing, which he said was \u201cpunctuated by huge instability\u201d.<\/p>\n

That got it down to 18 months.<\/p>\n

He converted the prison sentence to one of nine months\u2019 home detention, which would be served in the Wellington region.<\/p>\n

The judge said it was feasible that Corrections had concerns about Morgan\u2019s family dynamics at home, but said home detention was the appropriate option.<\/p>\n

However, he warned Morgan that, if he breached his sentence, he would be jailed.<\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The jury acquitted him of all charges he defended. At his sentencing on the sexual connection charge, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8831,42474,1968,8912,42,46991,7973,46992,43,1118,28703,6289,7680,17703,544,427,5163,1961,40,38,41,39,4129,13506,1455,102],"class_list":["post-55809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-an","tag-despair","tag-discusses","tag-distressing","tag-headlines","tag-jessie","tag-leaves","tag-morgans","tag-news","tag-of","tag-offending","tag-readers","tag-sex","tag-sexual","tag-some","tag-story","tag-teen","tag-this","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trail","tag-underage","tag-warning","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55809","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=55809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}