{"id":83351,"date":"2025-10-17T01:24:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T01:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/83351\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T01:24:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T01:24:11","slug":"prominent-northland-leader-admits-assaulting-two-women-in-whangarei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/83351\/","title":{"rendered":"Prominent Northland leader admits assaulting two women in Whang\u0101rei"},"content":{"rendered":"

The case was transferred to Kaikohe District Court, at the request of the leader.<\/p>\n

Judge Greg Davis asked the reason for the transfer, saying the press would likely follow the case no matter which court it was heard in.<\/p>\n

But he allowed the transfer when told Kaikohe is where the victims live.<\/p>\n

The person was remanded on bail until their next court appearance on November 28.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, an application for permanent name suppression<\/a> of the Northland leader was denied in the Whang\u0101rei District Court.<\/p>\n

Judge Gene Tomlinson said it had not been proven that extreme hardship would result from publication<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, leave was given for McDonald to appeal the decision in the High Court, meaning the person\u2019s details must be kept secret for now.<\/p>\n

Denise Piper is a news reporter<\/a> for the Northern Advocate, focusing on health and business. She has more than 20 years in journalism and is passionate about covering stories that make a difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The case was transferred to Kaikohe District Court, at the request of the leader. Judge Greg Davis asked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16489,5811,51247,78,671,13489,111,43,139,1067,69,6791,1237,1869,2248],"class_list":{"0":"post-83351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-admits","9":"tag-admitted","10":"tag-assaulting","11":"tag-in","12":"tag-incident","13":"tag-leader","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-newzealand","17":"tag-northland","18":"tag-nz","19":"tag-prominent","20":"tag-two","21":"tag-whangrei","22":"tag-women"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83351","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=83351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}