Gill Bonnett
Auckland, March 9, 2019
A real estate agent who indecently assaulted a boy while working as an Uber driver has lost his battle against deportation to India.
The 14-year-old victim’s mother told the Immigration and Protection Tribunal that her son now suffers long-term trauma and mental health problems and that he takes anti-psychotic medication, sleeping pills and antidepressants.
She asked that his attacker be deported.
Driver and Real Estate Agent
The man, who has not been named, had been doing Uber work while he trained to become a real estate agent.
He pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting the boy in his car.
The 34-year-old was sentenced to 12 months’ intensive supervision and two months’ community detention.
He got his real estate agent licence and a job in the industry last year.
His deportation deadline was extended from before Christmas until this month so he and his family could go back to India together.
The Tribunal decided that there were no exceptional humanitarian reasons for the father of three to be allowed to stay.
“If he is deported, he will feel a great sense of sadness and despair at having to abandon the family’s dreams of settling here. Even so, he and his wife both grew up in India and have been in this country for only four years. They will not have lost touch with the way of life in India, and readjustment to Indian society would not be difficult, albeit that it is not what either of them want,” the Tribunal said.
Gill Bonnett is a Reporter at Radio New Zealand. Indian Newslink has published the above Report under a Special Agreement with www.rnz.co.nz
