Tokoroa sex offender teaching dance students

Friday, 17 May 2019

A dance teacher at Tokoroa Rock 'n' Roll Club has convictions for sex offenses, but some club members spoken to by Stuff were comfortable with his role.

Hayden Wayne Middlebrook was 23 when he was jailed for having sex with his underage dance students. Fifteen years on, he's back teaching rock 'n' roll to children. It's a turn of events that would leave some outraged, but there are others who have chosen to accept his past. One clinical psychologist says it can be challenging for sex offenders to reintegrate back into the community, but with the right support, it can be done.

Every Monday night at a scout hall in the South Waikato, adults, teenagers, and children jive to the Beach Boys.

The Tokoroa Rock 'n' Roll Club is an amateur outfit but one of the club's dance instructors, Hayden Middlebrook, has achieved rock 'n' roll success on the national stage, taking home a silver in 2017.

Middlebrook has been a teacher at the club for the past few years.

And he's also a convicted sex offender.

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Middlebrook, now 38, was jailed for two years in 2004 for having sex with his students, girls aged 12 and 14.

He was 23 at the time of the offending, and a committee member and teacher with the Drifters Rock n Roll Club in Hamilton.

The police summary of facts makes for disturbing reading.

In 2003, Middlebrook squeezed and fondled the breasts of a 14-year-old girl while she sat on his knee during a bus trip back from a dance out of Hamilton.

About a month later he had sex with the girl at her home. Several days after that, the girl was off school sick and after phoning her he visited her at home, where they had sex again.

That same year, he began seeing his second victim, a 12-year-old girl. One night she snuck out of her house and they drove around Hamilton in his car, finally parking in the carpark at Hamilton Gardens, where they had sex in the back seat.

He pleaded guilty to three charges of sexual intercourse with a girl aged under 16 and a charge of doing an indecent act on a girl aged under 16 and was jailed for two years.

Now living in Tokoroa, Middlebrook said he's a different person to the one he was almost 16 years ago.

'I do everything I can to keep myself safe and everyone else safe.'

In 2004, Hayden Wayne Middlebrook was sent to prison for having unlawful sexual intercourse with two young girls.

He also claimed his students' parents and club president were aware of his previous convictions and they were comfortable with him teaching. Furthermore, he said the grandfather of one of his students was also his former probation officer.

'I'm never there alone, there are always other people around,' he said.

Another member of the Tokoroa Rock n roll club primarily teaches the junior attendees with support from adults in attendance.

'We always require juniors to be present with their parents or guardians around and there's always my partner there and other adults.'

One grandparent told Stuff she was not aware of the extent of Middlebrook's convictions but she was comfortable with him teaching her 10-year-old granddaughter.

'Her parents mentioned something to me about it but not to the extreme that you did,' the woman said.

'She's never out of my sight and I'm always in there anyway.

'As far as I'm concerned, I'm here and I stay with her all the time. I don't just drop her off and take off.'

Sex offenders often find it difficult to reintegrate themselves into the community, Waikato University senior lecturer and clinical psychologist, Dr Armon Tamatea said.

He said it's common for families of sex offenders to distance themselves once the individual is released from prison.

Social stigma is one reason, and protecting their young family members is another.

Tamatea said support for the sex offender can not only be beneficial for the individual, it can benefit the community, too.

'What we're talking about is someone who is part of a group of individuals whose behaviour typically is really concerning to communities.

'For folks who have committed concerning or harmful sexual behaviour with young people in the past, part of the picture for them is the sense of isolation, and that of course is one of the big challenges when they come off sentence or when they come out of prison.

'A number of ways the transition can be eased, is where the man himself can take responsibility for his own behaviour and knows the triggers and warning signs: what that looks like, under what conditions, and what that's meant for him in the past, and the need for him to not be committed to that behaviour anymore.'

And for many men like Middlebrook, the shock of arrest or prison itself can be treatment because they're not necessarily folk who have an easy time in jail.

'If the person has good accommodation, and if they have regular contact with people who are supportive and know the history, that can be very powerful because it's one less secret to kind of sit on and again, it reduces that isolation.

'And if they're employed, well they have an income, which in turn provides options, stability and structures, and even in some ways draws a person into a different social set.'

But in order to see the benefits, sex offenders also have to develop insight into their problem behaviour.

In 2005, residents from the West Coast town of Blackball banded together to oust a sex offender who had moved into their community.

Tamatea said that was an extreme example of a community's reaction to sex offenders and although it is possible to over-read the stigma, there is a danger in under-reading the situation.

Police were not able to confirm if they were knew Middlebrook was currently teaching or whether he was being monitored.

Child Matters chief executive Jane Searle said it was important that parents remained vigilant regarding safety checks that clubs do.

'This includes not just police checks, but also robust reference checking.

'Parents need to check the procedures in place with any sporting or community group to ensure that their children are not put in vulnerable situation regardless of if the person has passed a police check or not.'

New Zealand Amateur Rock 'n' Roll Association president Nola Calvert said she was not aware of Middlebrook's convictions because the association does not have oversight of local clubs.

Middlebrook said anyone concerned by his role in the club were more than welcome to speak with him.

He said he did not require a police check for his position at the rock 'n' roll club.

'I don't want the rock 'n' roll club to be affected and have any issues going forward.

'I want to have the enjoyment in my life and not have any stress about it all.'

Club president Geoff Goossens did not respond to requests for comment.