Home News Opinion Videos Blogs Features Family Notices Classifieds Photos Events Clubs Advertising Contact
Sport Focus on the Land Entertainment
Editorials Columns Letters
News Market Place
Former teacher guilty of abuse
Friday, September 07, 2012
A FORMER Gisborne deputy principal has been found guilty of sexually abusing a young girl and can now be named.

He was previously jailed for possessing more than 1000 images of child pornography.

Norman John Foote, 65, now of Rotorua, was found guilty yesterday by a Rotorua District Court jury of two charges of sexually violating the girl by unlawful sexual connection and four charges of either doing an indecent act on the girl or indecently assaulting her.

All of the guilty verdicts were by a majority of 11-1. The jury unanimously found Foote not guilty of one charge of doing an indecent act.

The offences were committed over a nine-year period in the 1990s, starting when the complainant was a child.

At the time Foote was deputy principal at Tolaga Bay Area School.

He is no longer employed in schools.

After the verdicts were read out, Judge James Weir told the jury they might be interested to know that Foote had previously pleaded guilty in 2007 to 20 charges of possessing child pornography.

It was reported in February 2007 that Foote, who had been deputy principal of Lytton High School, was jailed for 10 months after downloading 1045 images on to a school-provided laptop.

The judge told the court the images all involved sexual abuse of children, some as young as three years old.

The pornography also included images of sadism and bestiality.

Foote was granted leave to apply for home detention but in 2007 it was a decision for the parole board to make.

Name suppression was lifted after Foote’s lawyer Murray McKechnie said he would not be applying for it to continue.

The victim was in court along with her mother and other supporters when the verdicts were read out.

At least one of the jurors turned and smiled at the victim and her family as the jury left the courtroom.

The victim and her mother did not want to talk to the press about the verdicts.

Supporters of Foote were also in the public gallery.

Judge Weir remanded Foote in custody for sentencing on October 26. — Rotorua Daily Post
Comments
No comments - be the first to comment
Poll

Do you agree with a bid to pull bridge jumpers away from unsafe road bridges in the city by building “bombing platforms” for youngsters in safe places along the Turanganui River?

Please read: Call for ‘bombing platforms’
Yes
No
Don't Know
Send in your
News
Letters
Columns
Events
Clubs
Classifieds
Poll suggestions
Explore The Gisborne Herald
News Editorial Features Events
Sport Letters to the Editor Family Notices Clubs
Focus on the Land Columns Classifieds Advertising
News Features Polls Photos Contact
64 Gladstone Road, PO Box 1143, Gisborne, New Zealand | Ph: +64 6 869 0600 | Fax: +64 6 869 0643 (editorial) | Fax: +64 6 869 0644 (advertising) | News Hotline: 0800 NEWSLINE (639 754) | info@gisborneherald.co.nz Copyright © The Gisborne Herald