James ‘Jim’ Booth, a teacher at a school in Manawatu, was jailed today for the crimes against multiple students.
Booth admitted to taking the students to a camp under the pretext of teaching them to fish and hunt.
The name of the school where Booth taught for most of his working life has been permanently suppressed.
One of Booth’s victims, named in court documents as ‘Charlie’ (not his real name), got Booth to admit over the phone what he had done to him. The conversation was recorded by police officers in Australia where Charlie now lives with his wife and daughter.
Other victims were sexually abused by Booth on a school trip in 1981.
At Booth’s first court appearance in Palmerston North earlier this year, he pleaded not guilty to eight counts of indecency with a boy between 12 and 16, and nine charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection. He later admitted guilt and changed his plea to guilty to a total of 21 charges.
However, he changed his plea in July and pleaded guilty to all 21 charges.
