A survivors advocate says Sir James Wallace should already be stripped of his knighthood after it was revealed he had been convicted of indecently assaulting and sexually violating three men at his Auckland mansion.
The 83-year-old had name suppression for several years and had only been referred to as a "well-known businessman" until 2pm on Wednesday when the suppression lapsed.
Wallace was found to have indecently assaulted three men on separate occasions between the early 2000s and 2016.
The Government said the process to remove his knighthood is underway, but advocate Ruth Money told AM Early on Thursday it should've been simultaneous with his name-suppressing lifting.
"It should've been stripped as soon as the suppression came off. It doesn't take long to sort that out."
Since Sir James had already been convicted and incarcerated, the suppression should've been linked to the knighthood, Money said.
"I can understand why they couldn't have announced it until the suppression came off, but the knighthood absolutely needs to go. Sexual predators should not be walking around with knighthoods."
If Sir James loses his knighthood, Money says it'll make a "small difference" to the survivors, but she believes there is a much bigger discussion that is needed to be had.
"People in New Zealand need to understand that sexual predators are everywhere. They've got a knighthood, they play rugby, they coach your children, they teach your children, they live next door," she said.
"So we need to start talking about this as a community, but certainly removing the knighthood and the illustrious kind of mana that comes with that, will go a little way, it will help."
Money told AM Early host Michael O'Keeffe the easing of the suppression was a "huge day' for the survivors, who held onto the anxiety, the pain and the anger which affected their well-being.
She said it was a day of relief and high emotion for the survivors and likely "anger that they've had to be gagged for as long as they've been."
But Money told AM Early Wallace's fortune meant he was able to drag out the case and keep his name suppressed for around five years.
She believes this shows there are different outcomes for different people in the justice system.
"If you're well-resourced, you can keep fighting and fighting and dragging your survivors right up until the highest court of the land and that's what we've seen here," she told AM Early.
"There is absolutely at least two justice systems, those who are resourced and those that are not. But sadly, victim outcomes and survivor-victim outcomes are always tied to what happens with that offender and it absolutely shouldn't be that way."
Money said even though the justice system isn't tailored to survivors, she has had people come to her saying it's worth "hanging in there" for justice.
"They're [survivors] waiting for higher courts to make decisions on suppressions, where lower courts have removed the suppression of the offender, but they're still being gagged because there are appeals," she said.
"Of course, the justice system is so slow that the victim is literally waiting on hold for those results, but I've also had survivors who've said about time, 'it's worth hanging in there' and all we can do is trust that at some point this mess of a justice system is going to be sorted out so we can expedite this kind of stuff because the outcomes are severe on well-being and people just don't acknowledge that."
Watch the full interview with Ruth Money in the video above.
