{"id":648613,"date":"2026-11-02T09:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T09:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/648613\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T09:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T09:28:10","slug":"daughter-who-had-sexual-affair-with-father-wins-name-suppression-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/648613\/","title":{"rendered":"Daughter who had sexual affair with father wins name suppression bid"},"content":{"rendered":"

When police were alerted, the father \u2013 who was in his 70s \u2013 told officers<\/a> he wasn\u2019t doing anything wrong.<\/p>\n

The woman\u2019s name suppression was heard in court today.<\/p>\n

Crown solicitor Lexie Glaser today opposed the woman\u2019s permanent name suppression bid, arguing that because her stepfather might be wrongly identified as the co-accused, it didn\u2019t reach the high threshold of extreme hardship.<\/p>\n

Judge Clark wasn\u2019t so convinced, and said media printing stories online and social media pages meant the information \u201chad a long lifespan\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis type offending … is fascinating to the public because, for some reason, this type of offending attracts attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my view, there\u2019s a real possibility that [stepfather] will be wrongly … considered the culprit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018She has a complex background\u2019<\/p>\n

The woman had only recently met her father before offending, and soon after moved in with him.<\/p>\n

The pair shared a bed, and the affair began.<\/p>\n

Other house occupants regularly heard the pair having sex, and openly talking about having sex together.<\/p>\n

On at least one occasion, an occupant walked in on the pair having sex.<\/p>\n

When questioned, the father denied any wrongdoing, while the daughter declined to make a statement to police.<\/p>\n

The father has also been charged and is in custody awaiting the completion of mental health reports.<\/p>\n

At sentencing, Judge Clark explained the woman had a \u201ccomplex\u201d background.<\/p>\n

Reports also showed she had post-traumatic stress disorder, ADHD, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder [FASD], and a \u201cmild or moderate intellectual disability\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018This type of offending attracts attention\u2019<\/p>\n

In assessing the application, Judge Clark said it was clear the woman \u201chas a number of different issues and that is important from my perspective because it means that although she is an adult, her level of functioning is not age appropriate\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is below that.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the judge accepted the woman\u2019s behaviour was \u201cutterly unacceptable\u201d, she deemed her \u201chighly vulnerable\u201d.<\/p>\n

That placed higher culpability on her father, \u201cwho is a man of more mature years\u201d.<\/p>\n

In pursuing her bid, the woman\u2019s counsel Glenn Dixon said if her name was printed the public would wrongly identify her stepfather as her co-offender given they share the same last name.<\/p>\n

He said news stories were no longer printed in the paper and fish and chip wrapper the next day. <\/p>\n

The woman\u2019s name would remain \u201don the internet forever\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would make future employment almost impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said people would automatically assume her stepfather was the perpetrator.<\/p>\n

Judge Clark said she heard his argument \u201cloud and clear\u201d.<\/p>\n

Glaser accepted there would be an element of suspicion cast on her stepfather. However, the issue for the Crown was absence of evidence to prove their argument.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s just common sense,\u201d the judge replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just trying to be real here. <\/p>\n

\u201cShould he just have to put up with it? <\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is that people will think it\u2019s him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Glaser said that was accepted but there was no evidence that members of the public would approach him, and those close to him already knew the truth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re thought of as the culprit when you are utterly innocent, when people have an undue level of fascination because of the nature of the offending, isn\u2019t that enough?\u201d the judge asked her.<\/p>\n

Glaser said case law had shown that undue hardship had to result, something beyond \u201cmere suffering\u201d.<\/p>\n

Judge Clark said she appreciated undue hardship did require something more than the hardship that would occur through publication.<\/p>\n

\u201cI accept that publication in present times doesn\u2019t just mean publication in a disposable newspaper which will then disappear into the fire in the coming months.<\/p>\n

\u201cPublication clearly in current times means inclusion on social media, via digital news outlets and that is information which will have a long lifespan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here, there was a real possibility that an innocent member of the family could be considered \u201cthe culprit of the incest offending\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be utterly unfair, not just now, but in the future for [stepdad] to have a cloud hanging over him when he has done nothing wrong … it is proper to allow for the defendant\u2019s name to be permanently suppressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When police were alerted, the father \u2013 who was in his 70s \u2013 told officers he wasn\u2019t doing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[62784,1040,201825,14032,6095,2209,1351,42,809,13617,43,9095,17703,13618,40,38,41,39,1299,6202,102,1354,4741],"class_list":["post-648613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-affair","tag-bid","tag-consensual","tag-daughter","tag-engaged","tag-father","tag-had","tag-headlines","tag-keep","tag-name","tag-news","tag-secret","tag-sexual","tag-suppression","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-who","tag-wins","tag-with","tag-woman","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648613","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=648613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}