‘I will never forgive you’: Victim confronts sex offender in Napier court

Zane Smith appeared in the Napier District Court.

This story deals with child sexual abuse and may be distressing for some readers.

A 72-year-old man with a history of sexual offending against boys has been told by one victim, now a middle-aged man, that his abuse “still makes me sick to my stomach to this day”.

Zane Hugh Smith appeared for sentencing in the Napier District Court on four charges of indecency with a boy aged 12 to 16, and one charge of indecent assault of a male over 16.

The court was told this was the third sentencing for Smith, who was before the courts in 2000 and 2005 for sexual offending against two other boys. In those years, he received home detention and a suspended prison sentence.

Smith’s counsel, Nicola Graham, said her client had not offended since 1990 and had voluntarily sought professional help in 1995 because “he genuinely wanted to stop offending”.

Judge Ian Mill sentenced Smith to 11 months of home detention in relation to his last victim after receiving reports from a psychiatrist, a psychotherapist and a probation officer who assessed there was minimal risk of him offending again.

He also ordered Smith to pay $10,000 for emotional harm to the man, now in his 40s, who read his victim impact statement to the court on Thursday.

The man told Smith that the abuse had caused him to suffer from mental health problems, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. He had tried to take his own life a number of times.

He described a particular incident which he said still sickened him.

“You have taken so much from me, and I will never be able to live a normal life because of what you did to me,” the man said.

“I will never forgive you for what you did to me and what you put me through as a child. You took my innocence away from me.”

Judge Mill said that Smith’s offending spanned the years 1973 to 1990, and he sexually assaulted the last victim in the final six years of that time.

“As at 1990, you were a serious offender, you were a serious risk to young boys, and you were almost beyond redemption,” the judge said.

However, Smith had voluntarily put himself through the community-based Stop programme for sex offenders, and in the 1990s had initiated counselling for alcohol abuse, which had been related to his offending.

Smith had received counselling for depression brought on by “guilt and shame over the events you have been involved in” and had taken rehabilitation very seriously.

“You are a different person now, but you cannot erase the person you were in the past and the terrible things you have done,” Judge Mill said.

A condition of Smith’s home detention and six months of post-detention conditions is that he will not be permitted to have access to children under the age of 16 without supervision.

Smith was prosecuted by Napier Crown Solicitor Steve Manning.

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.