Supreme Court to hear appeal on sex offences

File photo / NZ Herald

A New Plymouth man convicted of employing an underage girl as a prostitute will have his conviction considered by the Supreme Court.

The court - the highest in the land - granted Michael Hastie, 61, leave to appeal his convictions on six charges relating to sex with a minor and employing an underage girl as a prostitute. A New Plymouth District Court jury reached an 11-to-one guilty verdict in August 2010.

The court was told Hastie pretended to be a 22-year-old surfer and used phone calls and text messages to lure a 15-year-old girl from her grandparents' home in Wellington to his two-bedroom house in New Plymouth, where other young women were working as prostitutes.

She was reported missing by her grandparents but Hastie posed as a caring father figure to the authorities and applied for guardianship through the Family Court.

Hastie gave the girl alcohol and cannabis and the pair had sex on two or three occasions, and after several months she began working as a prostitute, with Hastie making the bookings and receiving a share of her earnings.

He also tried to get the girl's 16-year-old friend to work as a prostitute but she lost her nerve and the 15-year-old took her place, the court was told.

The complainant had suffered from depression and substance abuse since leaving the brothel.

Hastie appealed both his sentence and conviction in the Court of Appeal, arguing the trial judge should have directed jurors to deliberate further before telling them they could reach a majority verdict.

The Court of Appeal rejected the argument but Hastie then went to the Supreme Court, which has granted him leave to appeal his conviction.

"The approved grounds of appeal are whether the directions given to the jury before it delivered its verdicts were appropriate and, if not, whether this gave rise to a substantial miscarriage of justice," the Supreme Court said in its ruling.

The court will now consider the appeal.