Man guilty of sexual violation

A businessman has been convicted of sexual violation in Napier.

A Napier businessman was yesterday found guilty of sexually violating a female employee during what was to have been part of a modelling assignment.

The man on Monday pleaded not guilty to the charge of violating the woman with his hand while massaging her, and continued the denial yesterday during evidence in his trial before Judge Tony Adeane and a jury of eight women and four men.

But he had told of how he and the younger woman went to an address so he could show her what was involved in a proposed body-casting assignment, and she then allowed him to massage her.

He said he said he was surprised when the woman got up, said she didn't want it to go any further, and dressed. He believed everything up to that point was consensual.

Asked by Crown prosecutor Clayton Walker what he meant when he later told one of his staff he had made a mistake, he said the mistake had been when he asked the woman if she wanted a massage.

The jury retired at 1.05pm and returned a unanimous verdict of guilty less than two hours later. The man, represented by Russell Fairbrother QC was granted bail and continued interim name suppression and remanded for sentence in the week starting March 14.