Jones, who was described as "an outstanding music teacher" with a great reputation as someone who could encourage and extend young people, became infatuated with his 13-year-old pupil, Judge Jane Farish said in the Dunedin District Court. He told the girl he loved her and started touching her indecently, initially over her clothes. That developed to skin to skin contact to the point where he touched her indecently and had her commit indecencies.
The offending happened when the girl had turned 14 and had a very serious effect on her, as well as on her family, Jones' family and the music-related organisations with which he was associated, the judge said. She expressed some concern about references in letters to the offending being "an incident".
"It wasn't. It was a course and pattern of conduct over 14 months. And it had very serious effects on the victim."
Crown counsel Richard Smith referred to the significant age gap between the two, the period of grooming and the significant breach of trust. But he also acknowledged significant mitigating features, including Jones' previously good character and his very early guilty plea.
Defence counsel John Westgate also stressed Jones' lack of prior convictions, his genuine remorse and the effects of the offending on him. He had lost his good name and his business but still had the support of family and friends.
Sentencing Jones on two charges of having sexual connection with an under-age girl and doing an indecent act, Judge Farish said the offending was serious. It involved a breach of trust "on multiple levels". The girl's parents sent her to him for singing lessons, trusting him as they thought he was looking after their daughter and tutoring her.
They were paying him to do so.
In her victim impact statement, the girl said she was initially confused about what was happening. She regarded Jones as a compassionate, kind and caring man, someone she could trust and, when he told her he loved her, she could not understand someone of his age would say he loved a 14-year-old girl. She spoke of cutting herself off from many of the normal activities of 13- and 14-year-olds.
Her parents, in their statements, said they were "at their wits' end" to try to understand why their daughter was so confused and withdrawn.
It was also a breach of the trust of Jones' own family, although they remained supportive of him, the judge said. But she accepted he was "truly remorseful", was not at risk of further offending and that it had been "a huge fall from grace".
The aggravating features were the breach of trust, the 50-year age disparity, the extended time of the offending and the effects on the victim which, Judge Farish said, would be ongoing "for a considerable time".
On all charges, she sentenced Jones to concurrent prison terms of two and a-half years and gave him a warning under the "three strikes" law.
