Simi applied to the PSPLA for that renewal but police objected on the basis of three incidents they said called into question his fitness to be issued a licence.
The most serious was attempting to attend two separate children’s events at his local church despite being trespassed.
Simi was a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, which allows sex offenders to attend its services if they sign and abide by a fellowship agreement. Simi signed such an agreement in 2006 when he was freed from prison.
However, there were breaches of that agreement in 2012 and further complaints about his behaviour in 2013 and 2014, which resulted in him being excluded from the congregation in 2015 until he signed another fellowship agreement.
He refused to sign a new agreement but started to attend a church group. He was issued with a further exclusion notice, which he again breached.
In February last year, he attended two Adventist children’s events without permission and, when asked to leave, responded aggressively and challenged the ability of the church to do anything. After seeking legal advice, the church served him with a trespass order.
Simi told the PSPLA that this never happened but the authority’s head, Trish McConnell, said in a recently released judgment that she preferred the church’s version of events that Simi had refused to accept the trespass notice and kicked it away when it was placed at his feet by a member of the church.
“His actions also show a disregard for reasonable measures put in place following his criminal convictions to protect both himself and young people with whom he comes into contact,” McConnell said in her ruling from a hearing held last year, which Simi did not attend.
“In addition, he gave misleading evidence to the authority about ongoing contact with the church and lied about not being served with a trespass notice.”
The hearing also focused on two other incidents that called into question Simi’s fitness to hold a COA.
The first of these was in May 2023 when police attended Glendale Primary School, where one of Simi’s employees was working as a security guard. Simi was called in when his employee contacted police about a suspicious person. He then refused to identify himself to police or provide his company’s name. Officers identified him from his car registration and noted that he was obstructive, unco-operative and anti-police in his dealings with them.
In May 2021, during an Auckland Covid lockdown, Simi was stopped by police and asked about the legitimacy of his travel. He refused to provide a copy of his COA, his personal details, travel documents or any information requested by police.
The attending sergeant noted that Simi was obstructive, unco-operative and turned what should have been a five-minute stop into a 15-minute one.
Before the hearing, Simi said he had an official pass to be doing security patrol work during the lockdown and provided an exemption from his employer. However, that was found to have been deliberately backdated to the day before he was stopped by police.
The authority scheduled a hearing late last year and asked Simi to attend and provide evidence. However, he provided only limited responses to requests for information and didn’t turn up to the hearing.
McConnell said in her ruling that he had demonstrated an unwillingness to co-operate with police and others in authority.
“Security workers are frequently required to work co-operatively with police, and police need to be able to rely on them to comply with their reasonable demands and requests.
“If Mr Simi had advised these were isolated incidents, accepted he had acted inappropriately and had learnt from his mistakes, I may have been prepared to accept that he was still suitable to be a responsible security worker.
“However, he has continued to say he has done nothing wrong, lied about what has happened and insisted it was the police or other security worker that had acted inappropriately.”
McConnell rejected Simi’s application to renew his licence on those grounds while also noting that, despite his company A&M Solutions having been incorporated for some six years, it had never filed a tax return.
When contacted by NZME, Simi said his lawyer had advised him not to make any comment.
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.
