A primary school caretaker who plied a 13-year-old girl with LSD and other drugs – then later was found to have child sexual abuse imagery on his mobile phone – will have to stay in prison and remain on the sex offender registry despite arguing on appeal that both outcomes were too strict. 

Mount Eden resident Ashton Robert Kipa, 46, was sentenced out of Auckland District Court in August to two years and three months’ imprisonment for myriad drugs and illegal publication charges. 

He recently appealed to the High Court at Auckland, arguing that the prison outcome was “manifestly excessive” and should be replaced with a sentence of home detention. 

Court documents state Kipa, in a roundabout way, met the girl through his work at the primary school. He had received her phone number through her younger brother. 

In July last year, he arranged to meet up with the girl in Auckland Central after offering to provide her with LSD, magic mushrooms and cannabis. The girl texted again two days later asking for “shrooms and tabs and strong weed”. 

“Yes all good, make sure you don’t save me as Ash in case your mum sees,” Kipa replied. 

“OMG thank you, I am broke and cannot afford,” the girl replied. 

“No worries, no problem,” he said, adding of the drugs available: “I can get anything really.” 

But the text exchanges didn’t last long, and neither did the efforts at subterfuge. Within less than a week, the child’s mother had caught on. She provided copies of the conversation to the school principal where Kipa worked. 

The principal called a prompt disciplinary meeting and invited police. During the meeting, police found methamphetamine and a pipe on Kipa. They also seized his phone. 

Kipa refused to give police the access code to his phone – another crime – but authorties were able to hack into it relatively easily and found nine objectionable images. 

Police obtained a warrant to seize and search a second phone in November 2024 and found 12 more images deemed to “promote and support the sexualisation of children”. During the same search warrant, police found another meth pipe and a cannabis plant growing under a mounted light in a cupboard. 

District Court Judge Hermann Retzlaff. Photo / Twitter 

At the initial sentencing hearing, District Court Judge Hermann Retzlaff ordered a two-year starting point for the three counts of offering to supply drugs to the minor. 

He then uplifted the sentence by one month each for refusing to give his passcode and offending again while on bail for the first tranche of charges. A final uplift of 15 months was added for the objectionable material. 

The judge allowed 30% in combined credits for his guilty pleas and for his difficult background, with one more credit of two months factored in for his addiction issues. He declined a reduction for remorse. 

During Kipa’s appeal hearing last week before Justice Geoffrey Venning, defence lawyer Sam Galler argued that the uplift for the child exploitation material had been too high. If it had been just three months lower, Kipa would have been eligible for a non-custodial sentence and sex offender registration would have been optional for the judge rather than mandatory. 

Galler emphasised that there were no videos in the relatively small collection and only one of the images portrayed penetrative sexual activity with a child. 

An uplift of no more than six months would have adequately addressed the seriousness of the offending, he initially argued, later revising the number to eight to 10 months. 

“Mr Galler argued that the offending was at the lower end of the spectrum and, having regard to the period of time since the offence had been committed and the very low static risk of objectionable material reoffending, registration should not be directed,” Justice Venning noted in his decision. 

Justice Geoffrey Venning. Photo / Michael Craig  

Venning acknowledged the district court judge’s 15-month uplift for the objectionable materials might have been too high when considering totality. But conversely, he said, the uplifts suggested by the defence were too low. 

“The defendant in the present case had potential access to young girls through his contact at school, which is evident from his other offending,” Justice Venning explained. “I consider that makes his possession of the material more sinister and more serious.” 

He agreed with Crown prosecutor Keir Robinson that on appeal, a judge has to consider whether the overall sentence is manifestly excessive rather than focusing on a single element of the sentence. 

He pointed out that both the Crown and defence agreed during the district court hearing that the judge could have ordered a sentence of up to 28 months instead of the 24 months he settled on. 

In addition, Justice Venning said, the one-month uplift for offending on bail “might be regarded as generous” 

“Further, the discounts applied are also perhaps generous, particularly the 15% for Mr Kipa’s background given that he was 45 years old at the time of the offending,” the judge added. “Ten per cent could not have been criticised.” 

As a result, he opined, Kipa’s sentence could have easily been more than two years even if the objectionable materials uplift was lowered. And even if a sentence of two years or less was imposed, Justice Venning said he would have ordered a prison term rather than allowing a non-custodial alternative. 

The combination of “offering to supply drugs to a young girl on the basis she come to his home” and twice getting caught with child exploitation material on his phones made prison the correct outcome regardless, he explained. 

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.