Gloriavale teacher convicted of kissing, touching 9-year-old

Thursday, 19 December 2019

Just Standfast confessed his actions to Gloriavale leaders and is serving his sentence while living and working on a Gloriavale-owned farm away from the main community.

A Gloriavale teacher who avoided jail time after indecently touching and kissing his 'favourite' pupil can finally be named.

Just Standfast, who is 68 years old and has physical disabilities, indecently assaulted the 9-year-old girl, repeatedly kissed her and exposed himself on a bed during a playtime break.

Gloriavale is a religious community on the West Coast of the South Island.

He admitted a charge of sexual conduct with a child and was sentenced in March to six months of community detention and two years of intensive supervision. However, his interim name suppression continued until Thursday.

Standfast is no longer teaching. He confessed his actions to Gloriavale leaders and is serving his sentence while living and working on a Gloriavale-owned farm away from the main community.

At the sentencing in March, Judge Raoul Neave said prison would be difficult for the man because of his age and 'physical limitations'.

Standfast lost one of his legs above the knee and has no elbow joint in one arm from a serious car accident in his 20s.

The judge described the offending as 'a significant degree of abuse of trust, as both the victim's school teacher and a trusted family friend and a person of obviously respect in your community'.

'The victim at the time was aged nine and was a pupil in the school at which you taught and, during 2012, you were her classroom teacher.

'During that year, if you required tasks done in the class, you would sometimes choose the victim to help you and on one occasion, when she had finished the delegated task, you asked her for a kiss and she gave you one. It seems that she had been something of a favourite,' he said.

On one occasion between August 31 and September 30 2012, during a playtime break, Standfast told the class he was going to have a sleep. 'You told the victim to come and wake you up before the class re-started and the room was adjacent to the classroom …When she went into the room to wake you, you were lying on the bed,' he said.

As the girl approached, Standfast told her he wanted a cuddle and helped her onto the bed.

'She was on top of you. You hugged her, placed your hand on her bottom and kissed her on the face and the mouth. Some of those kisses were hard. She was scared and wanted to get away from you and finally managed to prise herself off, at which point she noticed that your penis had become exposed,' Judge Neave said.

The girl left and told her mother what had happened. The next day Standfast apologised to the girl's father and confessed to Gloriavale leaders. He said the victim was vulnerable and the offending had caused her 'significant harm' psychologically, he said.

'There has been a lot of confused feelings and conflicting emotions, in part no doubt because of the environment in which you were all living.'

Standfast wrote to the court to take complete responsibility.

'It is stated that you had no intention of exposing your genitals and that seems to have been an accident involving your clothing, although it is accepted I think that there had been some degree of arousal.'

He said the act was not premeditated.

Judge Neave said there was no need to put the man on the child sex offenders' register because there was 'no real risk to the community' given the man's age and the offending happened seven years ago.

Judge Neave said gave him a warning under the three strikes law. The judge suspected 'it is all a little absurd in your case, but I am required to give you that warning'.

'You are assessed to be a low risk of re-offending and that is noted, in no small measure I am sure to your age and the fact that there has never been any history of this behaviour or any criminal offending at all.'

In May last year another Gloriavale man Clem Ready was convicted and sentenced in the Greymouth District Court to 12 months' supervision for assaulting his two daughters. He disciplined Prayer and Constance (Connie) by hitting them with his hands or objects including a shoe and belt because he 'thought it was doing them good' between 1998 to 2014, when they were aged between 5 and 17 years old.

He was ordered to pay Connie Ready, who is now 24 years old, $1000 in emotional harm reparation. Prayer Ready, who had Down syndrome, died in Gloriavale when she was 14. She choked to death on a piece of meat while in an isolation room where the door handles were disabled.