Just a day after performing a crude act in a social worker’s office, Everest Oketopa repeatedly groped a paramedic in the back of an ambulance.<\/p>\n
He was so insistent that the healthcare professional had to move to the front of the vehicle to avoid him.<\/p>\n
Recently, the Waikato man appeared in the Hamilton District Court for sentencing on charges of assaulting a probation officer, after punching him in the face, doing an indecent act, and indecent assault.<\/p>\n
Judge Kim Saunders had to decide whether to hand down a prison term, which would likely see him freed on a time-served basis, or give intensive supervision to help with his rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
The first incident, in October last year, involved Oketopa punching a probation officer in the face, without warning, while he spoke with him and his family.<\/p>\n
The next day, he was in his social worker’s office speaking to her when he suddenly stood up and began playing with the drawstring of his pants.<\/p>\n
He then performed an indecent act and was quickly asked to leave.<\/p>\n
Later that same day, he called an ambulance to get a mental health assessment in hospital.<\/p>\n
While on the journey, he touched the paramedic “a number of occasions” on her leg.<\/p>\n
After telling him to stop and pushing his hand away, the victim ended up moving to the front passenger seat.<\/p>\n
rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just a day after performing a crude act in a social worker’s office, Everest Oketopa repeatedly groped a paramedic in the back of an ambulance. He was so insistent that the healthcare professional had to move to the front of the vehicle to avoid him. Recently, the Waikato man appeared in the Hamilton District Court […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16442,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16441\/revisions\/16442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}