Why do some sexual abuse victims go on to offend in a similar way when they get older?

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Warning: This story details sexual abuse and may be distressing for some readers.

It is not uncommon to hear in court that a person who has sexually offended was abused as a child. But what makes one victim go on to abuse while others avoid ever imposing the same pain they suffered on someone else? Tara Shaskey reports.

When Neil Harding considered lifting the name suppression that had protected him for years, his fear wasn't that people would learn the trauma he had endured as a child.

It was what they might assume about him once they did.

"I was warned by someone I respected to be careful. They said, 'If you stick your head above the parapet, people will want to shoot it'.

"I took that advice really seriously."

Harding, a survivor of sexual abuse at Auckland's Dilworth School, feared the stigma that someone who has been abused might themselves become an abuser.

The father of three, and now grandfather of four, had spent decades coaching children in football, cricket and squash.

He was concerned that, despite his own hands being clean, people would treat him differently and question their children having been around him in his earlier coaching days.

But his concern soon gave way to conviction.

"I'm not going to not do it out of fear of what people think," he said.

Photo: Open Justice / Michael Craig

"I looked back and thought, if I stick my head 'above the parapet', is there anyone from my past that's going to put their hand up and say 'him'.

"And I thought, nah, I'm fine. I've got nothing to hide.