A temporary protection order <\/a>was granted in August and the matter proceeded to a defended hearing in late 2025.<\/p>\nThe father\u2019s lawyer argued he exaggerated his behaviour to \u201ccreate a character\u201d and entertain viewers. He also said what he said online was not necessarily his beliefs.<\/p>\n
He suggested the mother\u2019s stress was caused by her monitoring his social media which she rejected, saying she had told the person sending her updates to stop.<\/p>\n
When questioned, the father admitted the comments made by his partner and followers were unacceptable.<\/p>\n
He also conceded he had taken no steps to shut them down.<\/p>\n
Under cross\u2011examination, he accepted he was wrong to accuse the mother of stalking:<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you accept she didn\u2019t go into the livestream?\u201d he was asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you\u2019re wrong about the stalking behaviour, correct?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay,\u201d he conceded.<\/p>\n
The judge found the father\u2019s conduct amounted to psychological abuse and therefore family violence.<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The judge said the man had created a “dynamic of conflict” online. Photo \/ 123RF<\/p>\n
The judge said the father \u201cclearly condoned\u201d the derogatory comments and \u201ctook no active steps\u201d to stop the commenting.<\/p>\n
The judge also agreed with the mother\u2019s lawyer the man had created a \u201cdynamic of conflict\u201d that encouraged viewers to attack her.<\/p>\n
Crucially, the judge said it did not matter that the mother never watched the streams.<\/p>\n
\u201cFather must have known that within the community in which he, mother and [son] reside that the vindictive and offensive comments toward mother would eventually come to her attention,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am satisfied that father\u2019s behaviour in condoning the actions of his own partner, and livestream viewers, constitutes a pattern of behaviour against which mother, and [son], need protection. I find that father\u2019s conduct and behaviour was such that it was his intention to control, demean, and manipulate mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
A further hearing has been scheduled to determine whether the temporary protection order will be made final.<\/p>\n
Chief online safety officer for Netsafe Sean Lyons advised if anyone sees themselves being attacked online not to panic or respond.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t retaliate. Don\u2019t engage in a back and forth argument that could escalate the situation,\u201d Lyons said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake screenshots, save any messages, URLs, usernames and document what is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lyons said Netsafe did not have the power to compel people to comply with taking down content but did work to resolve complaints.<\/p>\n
\u201cNetsafe can engage where harmful digital communications affecting New Zealanders are involved, regardless of the platform. Every complaint is not whether a platform allows anonymity but whether the communication is causing serious emotional distress and meets the relevant legal thresholds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shannon Pitman is a Whang\u0101rei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ng\u0101puhi\/ Ng\u0101ti P\u016bkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.<\/p>\n
Join NZ Herald\u2019s Open Justice team for Case by Case<\/a>, a new podcast examining the disputes and decisions making headlines across New Zealand. Watch the latest episode at the top of this story, or listen on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But influencers and would-be commentators who frame their \u201cstory times\u201d as expos\u00e9s without any editorial oversight are finding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1443,21045,138431,4619,48,1121,8555,9057,1651,21039,29223,11424,11521,81696,191,3958,6148,700,12027,12018,7753,130,111,43,139,69,5493,3800,43209,1961,416,16670,3608],"class_list":["post-583590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-about","tag-above","tag-abusive","tag-act","tag-audio","tag-case","tag-communications","tag-dads","tag-digital","tag-episode","tag-ex","tag-finds","tag-harm","tag-harmful","tag-here","tag-judge","tag-justice","tag-latest","tag-learn","tag-listen","tag-livestreams","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-open","tag-podcast","tag-psychological","tag-this","tag-video","tag-watch","tag-were"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583590","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=583590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}