ex-NHHA coach<\/a>\u202fand hockey players. <\/p>\nThe former\u202fOlympian resigned after a Hockey New Zealand probe into his alleged conduct. <\/p>\n
There is no suggestion the two ex-staffers\u2019 alleged conduct is linked. <\/p>\n
The Herald learned about the alleged sex abuse involving Hayley\u2019s daughter while making separate and unrelated inquiries about the coach. <\/p>\n
The Herald obtained a copy of Hayley\u2019s complaint and published her comments from it with permission. However, she was not one of the confidential sources quoted in any of the Herald\u2019s\u202freporting\u202f about NHHA. <\/p>\n
\u2018Tried to protect my child\u2019<\/p>\n
After the Herald published a series of stories, Hayley\u2019s work laptop and phone were confiscated by NHHA leaders without notice and she was removed from the site on June 19. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was scary. It was really humiliating having that happen in front of my colleagues. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve only been a mum who\u2019s tried to protect my child.\u201d <\/p>\n
Kasoof said NHHA did not comment on whistleblower complaints as they were confidential, but said all complaints were managed appropriately. <\/p>\n
He said NHHA considered it necessary to investigate Hayley\u2019s alleged \u201cunauthorised sharing and misuse of confidential and sensitive information, including how that information was disclosed to the media\u201d. <\/p>\n
Kasoof said this led to a workplace investigation into alleged breaches of employment obligations but was \u201cunrelated\u201d to any previous concerns that she raised. He would not elaborate further. <\/p>\n
NHHA engaged a law firm for the employment investigation, and the allegations against Hayley were upheld. <\/p>\n
Her contract was terminated late last month. <\/p>\n
![\"National]()
National Hockey Centre at North Harbour.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis process has taken significant time and money away from what should be North Harbour Hockey\u2019s focus, investing in the future of our sport,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
In a separate statement, released on NHHA\u2019s Facebook page on Friday, Kasoof said the media coverage had caused \u201csignificant reputational damage\u201d to NHHA and its management. <\/p>\n
He claimed in the post that Hayley\u2019s alleged breaches included \u201ccollusion\u201d with the media by her and her family. <\/p>\n
NHHA had previously told the Herald the man accused of abusing Hayley\u2019s daughter stopped working at the organisation in July 2025 \u201cfollowing an investigation conducted immediately after we received complaints from other staff members\u201d. <\/p>\n
Hayley said the outcome of this investigation was not shared with her or her daughter, only that he had resigned. <\/p>\n
The Herald can also reveal that following her verbal whistleblower complaint, a private investigator was commissioned in November 2025. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have been asked to undertake an independent and transparent examination of the concerns raised by you, regarding an incident within the NHHA,\u201d an email from the investigator to Hayley said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI aim to establish the facts and events of the incident and establish if there were potential breaches of policy, ethical standards, or legal requirements before, during, and after the incident.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hayley said she met and engaged with the investigator but no formal findings were ever shared with her. <\/p>\n
NHHA declined to answer questions yesterday regarding the nature and outcome of the independent November investigation and whether it maintained the matter was also investigated in July 2025. <\/p>\n
The private investigator was also approached for comment. <\/p>\n
\u2018Hard to recover\u2019<\/p>\n
Hayley said she was not a disgruntled employee. NHHA had been her life for many years and she would often spend seven days a week on site. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy love for Harbour came because I\u2019m so passionate about what I\u2019m doing, what we were doing, and when you develop a love for something and a passion for something that deeply, and it lets you down this badly, it is so hard to recover from that.\u201d <\/p>\n
She felt she \u201c100% had no other option\u201d but to blow the whistle, as she firmly believed the young people involved in the alleged sexual abuse had been let down and changes needed to be made to ensure it did not happen again. <\/p>\n
Hayley added that other concerning incidents had been handled differently by NHHA in the past. She felt her daughter and the other girls\u2019 alleged assault on site was not met with the same level of response. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we had someone come onto the property during an under-16 tournament and say something inappropriate to two of our Harbour girls, we got the police in. They taught us how to trespass, we got spoken to.\u201d <\/p>\n
She pointed to another situation where a player had a heart attack on the field and\u202fa review was later undertaken and changes made to ensure the pitch was more accessible to ambulances. <\/p>\n
Facebook posts provided to the Herald\u202fshow CPR training was subsequently offered to all coaches, managers, officials and club administrators. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are you not doing the same measures [in this case]? I\u2019m not saying you can stop bad things from happening because you cannot … But if bad things happen, my question is, were there things that we could have noticed?\u201d <\/p>\n
Hayley said\u202fif issues of alleged sexual misconduct arose again, she wanted young people to feel they could speak to management and that action would be taken. <\/p>\n
Instead, following her complaint, Hayley felt she was investigated more by the association than the man now charged with sexually abusing her child. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to prevent children from going through something like this again.\u201d <\/p>\n
Her legal representative, Gregory Bennett, wrote in response to Hayley\u2019s termination decision: \u201cThe conclusions reached lack an adequate evidential foundation and instead appear to reflect an assumption that our client should be held accountable for raising concerns regarding alleged child abuse at NHHA.\u201d <\/p>\n
Since raising the alarm, Hayley said she had felt like giving up many times. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been so hard, you feel like you\u2019re fighting a losing battle.\u201d <\/p>\n
She also worried for her teenage daughter, who Hayley said was now \u201cpetrified\u201d about returning to the workforce. <\/p>\n
But Hayley said she would not give up and had now raised a personal grievance for unjustified dismissal. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy to be investigated because I know that the truth will come out in the end.\u201d <\/p>\n
*Hayley\u2019s name has been changed for legal reasons<\/p>\n
Katie Harris is an Auckland-based journalist who covers issues such as sexual assault, workplace misconduct, media, crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2020.<\/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":"\u201cNo one should have to go through [the police reporting process] on their own, let alone an under-18.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1903,74,1554,3110,157907,26663,63,13838,20589,5838,43779,4754,111,139,529,69,90,4989,675,1560,7680,17703,213,1516,5163,10706,38658,1299,1354,6730],"class_list":["post-573035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-abuse","tag-after","tag-alleged","tag-association","tag-blew","tag-fired","tag-fires","tag-girls","tag-harbour","tag-help","tag-hockey","tag-members","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-north","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-organisation","tag-police","tag-report","tag-sex","tag-sexual","tag-sports","tag-staff","tag-teen","tag-teenage","tag-whistle","tag-who","tag-woman","tag-would"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573035","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=573035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}