National MP Sam Uffindell ‘asked to leave prestigious King’s College after violent nighttime attack on younger boy’

The National Party’s newest MP, Sam Uffindell, was asked to leave his exclusive boarding school after brutally beating a younger student late one night.

Uffindell only apologized to the man last year, 22 years after the attack, and nine months before he publicly announced his political ambitions.

He says the timing of his decision to apologize is unrelated to his decision to embark on a career in politics, but that the incident “ticked him” and he wanted to pay.

“It was one of the dumbest, dumbest things I’ve ever done. I really regret it, I still really regret it,” Uffindell said.

READ MORE:
* New Tauranga MP files new gang law on day one
* “Everyone likes a happy ending, Sam. They’re like puppies.’
* Uffindell turns the first day of a new position into a day out in the sun

The victim, who was 13 years old at the time, suffered severe bruising and significant trauma.

The police were not involved. Instead, Uffindell was disciplined along with three other teenagers who took part in the beating and asked to leave the school, Auckland’s King’s College. Uffindell was in year 11, or fifth grade, and was 16 years old when he attacked the younger boy. He completed his education at St Paul’s Collegiate in Hamilton.

Uffindell entered parliament this year after winning Tauranga’s June by-election.

The victim, whom Stuff has agreed not to name due to privacy concerns for his young family, said Uffindell contacted him through a mutual acquaintance in July last year.

Uffindell wanted to apologize, which the victim agreed after some thought. At the time, he said he would never forgive the boy who had hurt him, but would forgive the man Uffindell had become.

“But a few months later I sat down on the couch to watch the news with a beer and there he was, running to parliament,” said the victim. “I felt sick.”

National Party Leader Christopher Luxon at the election night headquarters of Tauranga candidate Sam Uffindell.

Mark Taylor/Things

National Party Leader Christopher Luxon at the election night headquarters of Tauranga candidate Sam Uffindell.

Uffindell had not mentioned his political intentions during the apology, the victim said.

“At the time, he said there wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t think about it. He used his family and said he has daughters and if something happened to them he would be sick,” he said.

“I believed him. But seeing that made me feel like his apology wasn’t sincere, he was just doing it to get his skeletons out of the closet so he could have a political career.”

The man said the original incident took place on the last night of the 1999 school year, at one of King’s College boarding houses.

He was in bed in his dorm after the lights went out when four older boys came in and jumped on him and started beating him, he said. He thought the boys had used wooden bed legs unscrewed from their dorm.

“I covered my head… they beat me,” he said. “I don’t remember much, but when it was over, everyone ran to the next dorm and lay there on the floor between the beds to hide.”

The victim later says that photos were taken of his injuries. “They’re showing this skinny little white kid covered in bruises,” he said. His ribs were not cracked, but there was some damage to the cartilage.

The victim’s older brother – who was in the dorm next door – remembers the entire dorm of third-formers storming in, causing mass confusion in the dark.

“We thought it was a pillow fight, kind of a tradition at the end of the term,” the brother said. “But it wasn’t. These guys were saying ‘they beat him up, they beat him up’.”

He eventually found out that the boy who had been attacked was his younger brother. He grabbed a cricket bat and furiously set out to find the violators, he said. Before he could find them, the caretaker stopped him, took him to his office and calmed him down.

“The caretaker said he would take care of it and sent me back to sleep,” said the brother.

stuff spoke to three other witnesses who were present at the time.

Uffindell ran on a platform that advocated better infrastructure and tougher anti-gang laws.

Delivered

Uffindell ran on a platform that advocated better infrastructure and tougher anti-gang laws.

After that, two of the perpetrators – Uffindell and another boy – were either expelled from school or “asked to leave school”. Two others were suspended for two weeks early next year.

When called by stuffUffindell said he couldn’t remember using the bed legs, but said he couldn’t rule it out.

Rather, what he remembered was driving into the third former’s dorm and hitting the victim.

“I went up to the person and punched him in the arm and body several times and they got hurt,” he said. “It was the last day of the year and we just went crazy and played ourselves out… we got carried away and did what we did.”

“I’m sorry and I was really stupid and I apologize for what happened, and since then I’ve been trying to make myself a better person and set an example for my kids. I learned a lot from the experience of 20 years ago.”

Uffindell said he decided to apologize after returning to New Zealand from abroad after a long absence. He was concerned about the emotional damage he would have caused, he said. He was grateful that the victim had spoken to him.

He said there was no connection between the desire to enter politics and the apology, which is why at the time of the call he did not mention that he would be entering politics.

“That was not my motivation at all. I called the man because I was sorry for what happened and I wanted to shut that down,” he said.

The National Party was aware of the incident when he joined, he said, and was grateful to have disclosed it to them.

Sam Uffindell says he told the National Party about the incident where he

Mark Taylor/Things

Sam Uffindell says he told the National Party about the incident where he “asked to leave” King’s College.

Uffindell does not mention King’s College in his online biography.

The bullying incident was not disclosed to voters during Uffindell’s successful candidacy in this year’s Tauranga by-election. Uffindell won the seat by a comfortable majority after it was left open by the resignation of former National Party leader Simon Bridges.

He gave his maiden speech to Parliament last week, speaking at length about how Tauranga was plagued by gang issues and a “growing culture of lawlessness, lack of accountability, a sense of impunity and significant underlying social problems across generations”.

“We need friends, family and especially parents to stand up and show what is right,” he said.

The victim said he probably wouldn’t have agreed to talk to Stuff about the incident if Uffindell had handled the apology properly.

“If he really cared, he would at least have warned me that he intended to go into politics,” he said. “And he wouldn’t have waited until the last minute to apologize until he had something he wanted to do, if he was genuinely apologetic and caring.”