But his actions during the response to Cyclone Gabrielle ended the 56-year-old’s career with both organisations, which have since confirmed he is no longer a member of either and no longer works for them.

According to one High Court trial, Knight was the leader of a response team that stopped near Wairoa for a barbecue in February 2023.

Photographs were taken, and in one of them, Knight grabbed the woman’s buttocks with his hand.

He then said he was “going to pee” before suggesting to the woman: “Why don’t you hold it for me?”

Later that day, Knight, the woman and another team member were cleaning a bedroom in their dorm when Knight told the other person to leave to find clean linens.

While he was gone, Knight told the woman to come into his room and see the view. When she left, Knight was fumbling in his bag. She waited for him to pass, but he closed the door and the woman realized he had unbuttoned his pants to expose himself.

He clung to her, tried to kiss her and asked her to touch him. He undid her belt and tried to unbutton her pants.

The assault stopped when the other team member radioed the pair, asking where they were.

The woman quickly left the room and went outside. She later told her teammate, who called the coordinating organization to report the incident.

The woman told NZME that reporting the incident in the middle of the recovery was stressful because there was almost no way to get hold of the outside world – just a single Starlink in an area used by the whole team.

“I thought they were all people I could trust”

The woman, whose name is legally suppressed, said she had no concerns about joining the response team.

“You feel like you can trust the people in the emergency services, right?

“I’ve never been nervous about going on a deployment with a bunch of guys. I thought they were all people I could trust… They’re all here for the same purpose, we’re all here to help people.”

“What better people to be with?”

After the incident, she took a break, went to counselling, and was just starting to feel better about things when she had to give evidence at a trial with a judge, which was held at Tauranga Magistrates’ Court.

Knight denied and continues to deny that the events happened.

The woman said she was questioned and told she made things up “quite traumatizing”.

She was relieved when the judge found Knight guilty and was able to open up with her team about what happened that day.

While he didn’t think Knight’s actions reflected on the team or the various emergency service organizations involved, there were things he believed could have been handled differently.

There had been a lot of sexual talk between male teammates, which she hadn’t wanted to make much of at the time.

“It was a totally inappropriate joke… They’ve all worked together for a few years and I thought, you know, that’s probably how they talk when no one else is around…”

Only after “it all happened and everyone had a chance to reflect on it, actually, as a matter of professionalism, it probably wasn’t right.”

Discharge without conviction refused

Knight asked to be released without conviction and to have his name permanently suppressed, but Judge Paul Geoghegan rejected those requests.

His decision was upheld by Mr Justice Matthew Muir on appeal to the High Court.

In sentencing, Judge Geoghegan took into account the impact of the act on the woman.

“I felt so vulnerable and terrified to be put in this position (by someone in power and while I had almost all forms of communication),” her victim impact statement reads.

“I’m scared to see him again and it makes my heart beat fast,” she said.

In the week after the incident, she felt “broken, angry, unable to eat, struggling to get out of bed, sleep deprived and in urgent need of someone to talk to as I felt out of control”.

The judge concluded that the offending had taken a “very significant toll” on her.

He said the offending was “on a serious level”, noting that Knight was in a position of authority and took advantage of the woman in “circumstances where she was vulnerable”.

However, he balanced that with Knight’s “thoroughly clear record”, his “glowing references” and his community contribution.

The judge said the consequences of a conviction were clear – Knight lost his job and it would be “extremely difficult” for him to get a similar job again because of the “nature of the offence”.

However, Judge Geoghegan did not consider these consequences to be disproportionate and also refused the request to permanently suppress the name.

On appeal, Knight’s lawyer, Phil Mitchell, said the judge made an error in assessing the seriousness of the offense and did not fully consider evidence of Knight’s previous good character.

He said the first incident was best classified as “childish behaviour” and the second was still at the lowest level of seriousness in terms of indecent assault.

Mitchell also said the judge should have given more consideration to Knight’s offer of $10,000 in emotional damages.

“Highly transactional” offer to pay emotional harm

Judge Muir did not think Judge Geoghegan had erred in assessing the seriousness of the offence.

Both incidents had the “gravely aggravating feature” of having occurred when Knight was in a position of authority over the woman.

He noted the “particularly disturbing” circumstances of the bedroom attack, which showed elements of premeditation, where the woman was “lured” into Knight’s room.

“This was, by any reckoning, a serious sexual assault,” Judge Muir said.

There was an additional aggravating feature of the extent of the psychological trauma the woman suffered.

“In a way, the offense epitomizes everything that women have called time for decades – an older man in a position of authority, abusing that authority for his own sexual gratification, and seemingly without reference to the psychological consequences for a young person. woman who just wants to pursue her dedicated career,” Judge Muir said.

Both he and Judge Geoghegan noted that Knight had no remorse.

Judge Muir said that in light of this, the offer of emotional harm was “very transactional”.

“Essentially, what Mr. Knight is asking is to be granted a discharge on payment of $10,000, while maintaining that the offense never took place and consequently without any expression of remorse.”

Mitchell pointed to the wider benefits of the offer – compensation for the woman and that a “former productive member of society” could then return to a tax-paying job.

Judge Muir said that while this had “superficial appeal”, it essentially “commercialises” the justice process, potentially exposing it to criticism of a two-tiered justice system based on financial standing.

He also said prospective employers should be entitled to assess for themselves the risk Knight may pose, given the demands of a potential role, the likely involvement between Knight and female staff and any therapeutic work Knight may have done from the conviction.

“He will never be able to work for the emergency services again”

The woman told NZME the incident continued to affect her but she was regaining her confidence.

She still had reservations about working alone with men.

“I’m very aware that most people are good people and it happens (in) very rare circumstances where people make bad decisions, but it’s definitely always in the back of my mind.”

The outcome of the court proceedings helped to end it.

“I feel confident knowing … that he will never be able to work for the emergency services again.”

She felt there was conduct leading up to the incident that made him feel premeditated, including efforts to control where he went and what he did. She didn’t think it was just a momentary lapse of judgment on Knight’s part.

Knight was sentenced to six months of home detention in May. Because of the appeal, the suppression of the name continued until the High Court made its decision public.

Knight was contacted by NZME through his lawyer but declined to comment.

NZME cannot identify which emergency service organization was overseeing the operation because of suppression orders to protect the victim’s identity.

However, the organization said that after Cyclone Gabrielle it conducted an internal review of its emergency response teams and identified several areas where it could make improvements.

“As a result, we have appointed a national manager to develop and implement standardized policies across our emergency response teams,” a spokesman said.

Hannah Bartlett is an Open Justice reporter in Tauranga at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail and was a radio reporter for Newstalk ZB before that.