NZ Government's Deputy Press Secretary A "Peeping Tom"
Michael Forbes has apologised to victims, a year after police reports were filed and his photos and videos uncovered
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Note: Post-publication it’s been revealed police told Michael Forbes his behaviour did not meet the threshold for criminality despite official police policy. Police also allowed him to delete all evidence on his government and private phones in 2024 and then Commissioner Coster was never notified.
One of the news pieces that frustrates me is National Party Deputy Chief Secretary Michael Forbes illicitly recording sex workers, and women in every day scenarios - at the gym, in their bedrooms at home, at a supermarket, at the Beehive.
From Penfold’s investigative piece:
“Zooming up on their bum … lots of girls in sports gear and gym tights and gym shorts…
There are 14 photos of a woman asleep or passed out, the lens trained progressively closer on her breasts, nipples exposed….
There is also a series of four videos of women getting ready to go out, filmed through a window at night.
“They’re walking around, they don’t have tops on. You can see their breasts are exposed.”
This is non-consensual activity and an abuse of all women, in effect.
Forbes is what used to be called a “Peeping Tom”. It refers to a person who secretly observes others, particularly for sexual gratification, without their knowledge or consent. It's a term for a voyeur, a crime based on sexual deviancy, according to Law.com.
It’s a felony in most countries, and no different in New Zealand.
We’ve seen many men prosecuted for these crimes already here -
For example, a Riccarton Christchurch man who filmed women in bathrooms without consent, the Auckland Grey Lynn peeping tom, labelled a “disgusting man” who was jailed for three years and seven months for photographing women without consent too.1