Last updated 18:29, May 25 2018
Abigail Dougherty/Stuff
Arthur Parkin was jailed on Friday at the Auckland District Court.
Arthur Parkin was jailed on Friday at the Auckland District Court.
Arthur Parkin was the golden boy – a hockey champion who brought back a gold medal for New Zealand at the 1976 Olympic Games. But his indecent assaults of a young girl would be his unravelling.
The Adventures of Tin Tin was playing on the television when the Olympic gold medallist touched her for the first time.
She wasn't even a teenager – just 11 years old. She didn't know how to act, what to say, or who to tell. Instead, she shut off.
It was 1980. The incident, on a brown couch at former hockey player Arthur Parkin's Auckland home, would remain vividly set in her memory for decades.
On Friday, the nearly four-decade saga came to an end, when Parkin was jailed for one year and eight months.
However, the effects would continue "until the day I die", the victim, whose name is suppressed, said.
"I still have fears, anxieties that I live with," she said outside court.
"I still live with it even though it's over for everyone else."
The New Zealand Olympic Hockey Team in 1976.
Parkin's trial on five counts of indecent assault took place in February at the Auckland District Court.
Three women alleged he had assaulted them on five separate occasions when they were girls.
He was found guilty of two charges, both relating to the victim, a family friend of him and his ex-wife.
The jury found him not guilty of the other three.
During the trial, the victim testified she would stay with Parkin and his ex-wife to help with their young children.
On the evening he indecently assaulted her for the first time, he slipped behind her on the L-shaped couch and shivered, she said.
"I remembered him saying 'I'm cold' as he leaned over me."
The second time Parkin indecently assaulted her was in the dining room of his home.
She had walked from the lounge to the kitchen to get a glass of water when Parkin, exposed from the waist down, asked her to come and sit on his knee at the table.
He then made her touch his genitals.
"I do remember him saying, 'I'm sorry'," the victim said.
During the trial, Parkin admitted to the incident, claiming he was tired, exhausted and overworked from having a newborn baby, hockey commitments and school commitments.
It was a "spur of the moment, silly thing to do", he said.
Arthur Parkin was a celebrated hockey player.
The victim said she felt ashamed and fearful of the consequences if she spoke out.
"I was young and Arthur was the adult, who am I to question that?"
The victim told her sister shortly after the incident. In 1992, she told her mother, and her mother went to the police.
However, she decided not to press charges, as she thought she would be blamed for Parkin's marriage breaking up.
Years later, she confronted Parkin at his office about the incidents, but left feeling "really disappointed", she said.
"I wanted a reason to shout, cry, scream and get angry and vent."
Auckland Sexual Abuse HELP Foundation executive director Kathryn McPhillips said it was often hard for survivors of sexual abuse to speak out.
"For some people, they don't even know it's abuse and think it's too late to tell anyone," she said.
"But also there's something about sexual abuse that people automatically blame themselves for and feel ashamed and dirty."
McPhillips said coming forward was getting easier, as more people were opening up about incidents.
"But there's more often . . . stigmatisation on the victim and not the person [who inflicted the abuse]," McPhillips said.
"It's an incredibly brave thing to report."
In 2016, the victim finally got up the courage to speak to the police – who made her feel listened to, she said outside court.
"They said a historic case mattered as much as a recent one and I felt acknowledged by them from the get go."
However, the frustration over how long the case took to reach its conclusion was enormous.
"It felt very cruel to me to have to drag this out so long."
On Friday, the victim stood up in court to tell Parkin, to his face, of the impact his actions had had.
"You made decisions, multiple decisions, Arthur, that you have clearly brushed off under that carpet," she said.
"There is always a choice Arthur, you can't blame fatigue.
"Those decisions influenced my life ever since . . . those decisions you made will continue to influence my life negatively until the day I die."
She said she still struggled with intimacy.
"It takes one moment of not being acknowledged and I'm right back there on that brown couch with no voice."
However, she said she forgave Parkin for what he had done to her, because she was done fighting.
As he was sentenced, Parkin continued to deny his offending, shaking his head as Judge Robert Ronayne read out the details.
"You've failed to understand the significance of your actions, minimising the behaviour to the victim," Judge Ronayne told him.
"You said rubbing the victims or making verbal sexual statements was not as harmful as other sexual abuse."
Parkin was led away following the sentencing. He will spend at least six months behind bars.
The victim left the court in tears, saying that a weight had been lifted when she heard Judge Ronayne believe her.
She was heading home to celebrate her daughter's thirteenth birthday, she said. Ultimately, it was a day of celebration.