The man appeared in the District Court at Timaru yesterday after a jury last month found him not guilty of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, doing an indecent act on a young person and indecent assault.
During the trial, Judge Campbell Savage dismissed another charge of doing an indecent act on a young person.
Yesterday, counsel Michael De Buyzer argued the man’s name being published would cause extreme hardship to him and his wife, as well as sparking feelings of ‘‘shame and embarrassment’’ for other family members.
Publication of the defendant’s name, especially since he was acquitted, would exacerbate the couple’s underlying health issues and cause them further stress and anxiety, Mr De Buyzer said.
He said the Crown had downplayed the health issues as little more than old age.
‘‘I think it’s ungracious that the Crown have not properly acknowledged that,’’ Mr De Buyzer said.
He highlighted the ‘‘extremely prompt’’ not-guilty verdicts from the jury and the charge that was dismissed by the judge.
The man’s unblemished record and commitment to his community should not be tarnished by his name being made public, Mr De Buyzer said.
Crown prosecutor Callum Mitchelmore said the application for final name suppression did not meet the high legal threshold required.
But Judge Campbell Savage disagreed and granted the defendant’s application.
He was satisfied ‘‘by quite some margin’’ that the man’s name should not be published, and wished him well before leaving court.
Last month, Judge Savage presided over the defendant’s jury trial.
The Crown case was that the defendant had gained the trust of the teenage boy through his role working with youth, and sexually offended against him between 2014 and 2019.
Prosecutor Andrew McRae said the man had groomed the complainant and abused his position of trust.
‘‘The Crown say that [the defendant] was like a grandfather to the complainant, he was obviously a mentor to him, he encouraged him to be his best and he gained the trust of his parents as well,’’ Mr McRae said.
‘‘Things took a sinister turn.’’
But the jury rejected that narrative, instead believing the defence that the complainant was ‘‘a bit of a story-teller’’.
The defendant had ‘‘emphatically’’ denied the allegations and after he was arrested in 2024, told police he would ‘‘never ever, ever’’ sexually abuse the boy.
‘‘That would be putting aside everything I’ve stood for all my life.
‘‘It just didn’t happen,’’ the defendant told Detective Mark Durant.
In closing to the jury, counsel Philip Hall, KC, said his client’s police interview had ‘‘the ring of honesty’’ to it.
‘‘You could almost feel the outrage and disgust in the way he responded to the allegations ... he appeared to be absolutely genuine,’’ Mr Hall said.
Following the verdicts, the defendant told the Otago Daily Times he was ‘‘relieved’’.
While waiting more than a year to go to trial he was feeling ‘‘stressed’’ and ‘‘sorry that the complaints had ever been made against me, because it’s just against everything that I would stand for’’, he said.
‘‘There’s nobody more relieved than me, put it that way.’’
