A former table tennis coach is appealing his sentence after pleading guilty to historic indecent assault charges involving teenage boys.
Court Photo: RNZ / Diego Opatowski
Paul Thomas Escott, 75, was sentenced in August to 11 months' home detention after pleading guilty to 18 charges of indecent assault.
The sentencing judge also ordered that he be listed on the child sex offender register for eight years.
Six victims made complaints, which included Escott looking up their shorts and, on one occasion, supervising and touching one of the boys in a shower.
Today Escott's lawyer Lucie Scott told the High Court in Wellington the judge should have considered her client's age, and the fact it was 23 years since he last offended, when placing him on the register.
"Mr Escott does not pose any ongoing or any real and genuine risk to the sexual safety of children and had it been his focus, he would have found against registration for Mr Escott," she said.
Ms Scott told the court that Escott's offending was at the lower end of the scale, when compared with other cases.
She said Escott knew what he was doing was inappropriate and regretted it.
"He made the conscious effort to stop his offending and in my submission that's a very important point."
She said police investigated whether there were further victims, but accepted there was no evidence.
However, crown lawyer Ian Murray said while he accepted there had been a period of time that had lapsed without serious offending, he did not accept there was evidence to suggest a diminishment of risk.
Justice Thomas has reserved her decision on the appeal.