Misuse of HDCA

Shayne Currie reports:

One of New Zealand’s biggest news organisations is appealing a precedent-setting court decision, in which a man convicted of assaulting his partner convinced a judge that an online news article about him and the attack should be removed.

The district court judge agreed the man, who did not receive name suppression at the time of his conviction in 2018, had suffered “emotional distress” as a result of the story.

Yeah having people know you bashed your partner can be distressing. It’s known as a consequence.

One media lawyer said the Harmful Digital Communications Act – which the man had used in his case – was being increasingly cited against news media in ways that the lawyer believed Parliament had not intended.

HDCA was meant to be about protecting young people from bullying. Not to allow convicted violent criminals to hide their offending.

The man – who punched his partner in the face twice before she grabbed his testicles to stop the assault

Smart way to stop it!

Judge Greig said the man’s conviction was entered on August 8, 2018. “Seven years after his conviction, the article remained available online. The Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004, however, mandates that this conviction is spent and consequently, [the man] is now deemed to have no criminal record.”

The man had asked the news organisation several times in 2025 to have the online article removed, without success.

The clean slate law is not meant to allow for censorship of accurate news reports of the time.

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