Sport Northland to make decision on Arthur Parkin's Legend status

Parkin was found guilty of two of five charges of indecent assault at Auckland District Court.

Whether Olympic gold medallist Arthur Parkin will remain a Northland Legend of Sport will be decided next month after he was found guilty of two of five charges of indecent assault.

The former hockey player was inducted into the Northland Legends of Sport in 2016 after competing at four Olympic Games, winning a gold medal with the men's hockey team in Montreal in 1976.

Parkin faced five charges of indecently assaulting young girls in Whangarei, Auckland and Coromandel between 1975-83.

On Tuesday, 11 of the 12 jurors found him guilty of two charges related to the second of three complainants. The jury decided unanimously he was not guilty on the three other charges.

Sport Northland Chief Executive Brent Eastwood said the decision about Parkin and his place on the Legends of Sport list would be made at a board meeting on March 5.

"We haven't yet removed him as a Legend. We are going to a board meeting for a decision as we wanted to wait for the outcome of the court case before we made the call," he said.

"We were not aware [of the charges] before he was inducted. They surfaced following his induction."

When the charges against Parkin were made public, the Sport Northland board met to discuss whether he would remain on the Legends of Sport list.

"The discussion there was around presuming innocence until proven guilty and making the decision once we knew the outcome of the case," Eastwood said.

"We want to also check with Hockey New Zealand about what they're doing - not that it will necessarily effect on where the board finally gets to on the decision," he said.

"The board want to hear where Hockey NZ sat on this as well, given he's a life member there."

Other athletes on the list of Northland Legends of Sport include former All Blacks Sid Going and Ian Jones, equestrian Blyth Tait and 2017 inductees long jumper Bob Thomas and squash player Shelley Kitchen.

Judge Robert Ronayne told Parkin, following the guilt verdicts: "Imprisonment is very much on the cards."

Parkin's defence counsel Arthur Fairley disputed all the charges but accepted Parkin's partial admission to the fourth charge, in which Parkin had admitted he had asked the second complainant if she wanted to touch his exposed groin.

But Parkin claimed nothing further happened.