Marist ‘monster’ jailed – at 82 years old

Afeaki, now 82 years old, began a 25-month sentence for the sexual abuse he committed against two boys, then aged 11 and 12, while a teacher at Marist Brothers school, Invercargill, and St Paul’s College in Auckland between 1975 and 1979.

It’s his third sentence of imprisonment for sexual offending against his former pupils.

Despite Afeaki’s age and failing health, judge Kirsten Lummis told him there was no alternative to jail, because of the destructive impact he’d had on his victims’ lives.

One, Tane Davies*, had been forced to give evidence at trial because Afeaki originally pleaded not guilty, only to change his plea to guilty on the morning of the third day of evidence as the second victim, Robbie West* stood by to testify by videolink from a Christchurch courtroom.

“Your offending has had a devastating effect upon them,” judge Lummis told Afeaki. “It’s not often the court gets to see the full extent of harm to victims… but in this case it is laid out in detail in the victim impact statements before me”.

Both Tane and Robbie have had lives deeply impacted by addiction and criminal offending.

Tane was 11 years old when he arrived in Afeaki’s class at Marist Brothers primary, where Afeaki routinely and severely abused him for an entire school year.

He became an alcoholic at 12, became addicted to drugs, had mental health issues, multiple criminal convictions and numerous suicide attempts. He said that while his seven siblings all enjoyed successful careers, he had not.

He provided a victim impact statement which said “the abuse turned my life from normality to terror – instead of wanting to be educated, I went to ‘how do I escape from school and escape this terror’… there is not a single day where I don’t think about what he has done to me.”

In his witness testimony at trial, he had described a “year of anguish, torture and pain”.

Robbie’s statement detailed his PTSD and ongoing therapy. “He changed the course of my life forever. The effects are endless, I will be forced to live with them til the day I die, and there are no reparations for what I have had to endure since this person chose me.”

In his evidential interview, played at trial, he said: “There’s a photo from when it was happening which I saw for the first time last year and, f—, you can tell there was something wrong, I was skinny as, drawn, white… it brought a lot of stuff back when I saw that photo.”

Like Tane, he had an adult life ruined by his abuse, which included time sleeping rough, and what he once described to Stuff as a two-decade-long “self-medicated binge and imprisonment lifestyle”, with multiple drug-related offending, including ecstasy importation, and two heroin detoxes.

He now lives a quiet life in the South Island and wants to put it behind him. “It’s taken up 80% of my life,” he said earlier this year. “Don’t forget, I came forward with this in 2002. It’s taken 22 years for them to sort this s… out.”

In 1994, Afeaki was sentenced to eight years’ jail for offending against four boys between 1976 and 1979; he defended the charges, took pre-trial matters to the Court of Appeal, gave evidence denying the offences and lodged an appeal against conviction and was told by the trial judge, Ted Thomas, that he was a “wretched and self-dedicated hypocrite”.

In 2003, was given another two year sentence, converted to home detention, for nine offences against another St Paul’s student in 1980.

Judge Lummis said if the sentencing judge then had known about this offending he would certainly have been jailed again.

Afeaki subsequently gained an adult education degree and worked as a computer teacher.

He was charged with his offending against Tane and Robbie in 2021.

Both men told their stories for Stuff’s 2022 series on sexual abuse by the Marist religious orders, A Secret History.

Because Afeaki was awaiting trial, we could not name him in that series. We still approached him then, intending to ask about Robbie and Tane, but at his home he said: “No thanks. You’re trespassing. I’ll call the police.” At trial, he told Stuff we had “crucified” him with our reporting.

Afeaki had received a sentence indication in 2022 from Judge Russell Walker of an end sentence after discounts of two to three years – but that had included discounts of 55%, including a substantial discount for a guilty plea.

Crown lawyer Henry Steele said even a 10% discount for pleading guilty “would be generous”, given how late it came. He said it was “difficult to see” how the court could reach an end sentence in the range to be converted to home detention.

Afeaki’s lawyer Roger Eagles had argued for home detention, on the grounds of deteriorating health and his client’s good behaviour since 1980. He said Afeaki was a “frail, elderly man” and the “court should feel assured this man poses no risk to any others’’.

He also began to argue that it was difficult to claim the victims lives had been solely ruined by Afeaki’s actions, but was cut off by the judge, who said later that was an “unattractive” argument.

A psychological assessment said Afeaki was a below-average risk of reoffending, but the judge noted that in that report, Afeaki still denied the offending, claiming he didn’t even know one of the victims, making it “whether it is a true expression of remorse or an expression of feeling sorry for the position you’ve now found yourself in”.

Judge Lummis said if Afeaki had pleaded guilty two years ago, he might have avoided jail, but he had put both victims through the stress of the aborted trial.

She ordered he serve 25 months imprisonment for the offending against Davies, and a concurrent 12 month sentence for his offending against West.

Eagles said he wasn’t sure if Afeaki would appeal against sentence.

Murray Heasley, spokesman for the Network of Survivors of Faith-Based Abuse and their Supporters, of which Tane is a member, said: “He has finally achieved a modicum of redress and closure, given his assailant is going to do jail-time.

“Our survivor has been in his own prison for 40 years, so it is wonderful to have a judge who has acknowledged his depth of suffering and the unspeakable torment he has suffered.”

Earlier this year, Tane Davies told Stuff that Afeaki had irrevocably changed his future.“For each of us, he took our lives. He changed our lives from that moment.”

Tane Davies and Robbie West are pseudonyms.