Jury find youth not guilty of Northland school sexual assault

When students at the school began talking about the alleged incident, the defendant confronted a teacher. Photo / 123rf

WARNING: This story deals with sexual offending and may be distressing.

The central question that loomed over a jury deciding the fate of a senior student charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in a school toilet came down to just one thing - did it really happen?

After compelling closing arguments, the jury decided, it did not.

The 18-year-old from Northland - who cannot be named - has been on trial in the Whangārei District Court for one charge each of strangulation, male assaults female, unlawful sexual connection of a 12-16-year-old and one charge of abducts for sex a 12-16-year-old.

In August 2021, the defendant and the complaint were students at a high school in Northland - that cannot be named - and after a sports activity, the then 14-year-old girl went to a classroom to collect her bag before heading home.

The girl gave evidence the defendant called out to her for assistance in the toilet and as she approached, he pulled her into the toilet, slapped her across the face, strangled her and forced her to the ground to perform oral sex on him.

“He told me I had to do what he said,” she said in her evidential interview.

Multiple witnesses gave evidence at the jury trial including the complainant’s mother, a teacher, a family friend and the defendant.

The defendant told the jury his priority that afternoon was getting his car keys so he could collect his younger sister who was waiting to be picked up.

Explicit messages sent from the defendant to the complainant a year before were presented in court which the mother described as “disgusting”.

When the mother saw the messages on her daughter’s phone, she sent a text to the boy to stay away from her daughter.

The four-day trial at the Whangārei District Court was heard before Judge John McDonald. Photo / Mike Cunningham

In closing arguments to the jury, Crown prosecutor Mike Smith said the focus must be on what must be proved and not to be distracted by other things.

“Did it happen? That is the question,” Smith said.

Defence lawyer Martin Hislop told jurors they must be sure when delivering their verdicts and addressed the explicit messages.

“He was doing something we’ve heard about a lot called “sexting”. It’s not a crime, these things happen. He was 16.

“He gets a message from a mother ‘You talk to my daughter again, I’ll call the cops. This is a 16-year-old, he’s been told by a parent to ‘leave her alone’.

“He did,” Hislop told the jury.

The jury heard the defendant had to get a key from a teacher in a room next door to unlock the class to retrieve their bags.

“He got the key off the teacher to unlock the class, knowing there was a teacher next door and then [went on] to sexually violate her?” Hislop questioned.

When rumours got back to the boy about the allegations of an incident in the toilet, he went to a teacher to confront him about what was being said, sparking the investigation.

“When he found out, he confronted the teacher and what happened next opened up a can of worms.

“It [the allegations] came from him. These are the rumours, it didn’t happen but I need to confront it,” Hislop said of his client’s actions.

The jury found there was reasonable doubt and found the defendant not guilty on all charges.

Shannon Pitman is a Whangārei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ngāpuhi/ Ngāti Pūkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.