{"id":87544,"date":"2025-10-19T04:40:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T04:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/87544\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T04:40:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T04:40:06","slug":"auckland-judge-rebukes-supporters-as-razz-edwards-sentenced-for-abusing-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/87544\/","title":{"rendered":"Auckland judge rebukes supporters as Razz Edwards sentenced for abusing girls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edwards was found guilty via a majority verdict in Auckland District Court<\/a> earlier this year following a trial on one count of sexual violation and six counts of committing an indecent act on a young person. <\/p>\n

He faced up to 20 years\u2019 imprisonment for the sexual violation charge<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Prosecutors accused Edwards of sexually violating the first child some years ago while intoxicated, after convincing her to get under a blanket with him. <\/p>\n

The second victim told jurors she was targeted multiple times in the years that followed. He repeatedly groped her \u2013 kissing her on one occasion and unsuccessfully asking for sex on another, she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe broke down and cried as she left,\u201d the judge said of the final incident, which the victim recounted at trial.<\/p>\n

\"RazzRazz David Rawiri Edwards, 74, was sentenced in the Manukau District Court. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n

The allegations eventually surfaced through a school counsellor, with the first victim explaining she didn\u2019t come forward earlier because she was worried about the trouble it would cause with his supporters. She wasn\u2019t wrong, the judge noted. <\/p>\n

Both victims, now adults, opted not to attend the difficult sentencing \u2013 sending their mother to sit in the courtroom instead as their proxy. But both submitted emotional victim impact statements that were read aloud by Crown prosecutor Emma Barnes. <\/p>\n

Both said they still suffer trauma as a result of what Edwards did to them. <\/p>\n

The first accuser described how she still suffers severe insomnia, often finding herself guarded and unable to sleep until others in the house wake up in the morning. She also fears being alone with men, she said, explaining that she sometimes needs someone to escort her while talking to her male supervisor at work. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels so unprofessional,\u201d she explained. <\/p>\n

People who she once considered supporters in her life instead called her a liar when she came forward, she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want everyone to know what a monster he is, so it can\u2019t be swept under the rug or denied any longer,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

The second victim expressed similar sentiments about suffering ongoing nightmares and feeling alienated by Edwards\u2019 supporters during the stressful trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am amazed at how many people have turned their backs,\u201d she said, adding that she was angry she had to give evidence at trial instead of the defendant owning up to what he did. <\/p>\n

It was important to her, too, that the defendant\u2019s name was made public, she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been trying to hide what he did for so long,\u201d she explained, adding that she and the other victim wanted \u201cto protect other girls in the community\u201d. <\/p>\n

Although he denied the charge at trial, Edwards came to court for sentencing this week with a short letter of apology to the victims. The letter was so short it took the judge only seconds to read it to herself. <\/p>\n

Defence lawyer Luka Grbavac described his client as someone who had worked hard all his life but also suffered from alcoholism. The defendant\u2019s life began \u201cspiralling\u201d after his wife\u2019s death prompted his daily alcohol consumption to go \u201cthrough the roof\u201d \u2013 to the point that he was drinking about a box of beer a day at the time of offending, the lawyer said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was all day, every day,\u201d Grbavac said, explaining that Edwards chose not to give evidence at his trial because he simply didn\u2019t remember any of the incidents described by the victims. <\/p>\n

But Edwards accepts the jury\u2019s verdict, the defence lawyer emphasised. <\/p>\n

If Edwards is actually remorseful, the judge responded, he needs to have a frank conversation with his supporters and admit guilt to them so they stop re-traumatising the victims. <\/p>\n

The Crown disagreed that all of the incidents could be attributed to alcohol. On one occasion, he groped the second victim as she was making French toast for breakfast, so it\u2019s unlikely he would have been intoxicated then, Barnes suggested. <\/p>\n

Regardless, Judge Sharp said, alcohol is not a credible excuse for the defendant\u2019s interest in children. It\u2019s more likely, she said, \u201cyou had such predilictions in the first place\u201d and alcohol loosened his inhibitions, she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou took advantage of [them] in a despicable manner, and you cannot now fall back on your addiction to excuse or explain it,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

The judge set a starting point sentence of four-and-a-half years for the sexual violation conviction then uplifted it by eight months to account for the indecent acts. <\/p>\n

She allowed a 5% reduction for his self-reported abstinence from alcohol since his arrest and 10% for his age and poor physical health, which she acknowledged would make prison more difficult for him than the average offender. <\/p>\n

The court was told Edwards, who used a walker as he shuffled to the dock at the start of the hearing, suffered lingering effects from laryngeal cancer and has recently been treated in a hospital ICU for septic shock. <\/p>\n

She declined his requested discount for remorse, resulting in an end sentence of four years and three months\u2019 imprisonment. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey have lost so much as a result of your behaviour,\u201d the judge said, describing his offending as \u201ccalculated\u201d and needing of deterrence.<\/p>\n

Edwards blew a kiss at his supporters as they yelled out their love for him at the end of the hearing. <\/p>\n

He will also have to register as a sex offender, the judge ordered. <\/p>\n

Craig Kapitan<\/a> is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.<\/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":"Edwards was found guilty via a majority verdict in Auckland District Court earlier this year following a trial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[26673,806,17704,51,1061,181,8912,25597,2082,13838,42,3958,43,66272,6289,66271,5161,17703,544,427,20420,1961,40,38,41,39,1455],"class_list":["post-87544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-abusing","tag-as","tag-assault","tag-auckland","tag-children","tag-details","tag-distressing","tag-edwards","tag-for","tag-girls","tag-headlines","tag-judge","tag-news","tag-razz","tag-readers","tag-rebukes","tag-sentenced","tag-sexual","tag-some","tag-story","tag-supporters","tag-this","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-warning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87544","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=87544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}