File photo. David Seymour told Nine to Noon ACT did everything it could that 'an organisation in our position faced". Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
ACT leader David Seymour is standing by his party's response to a warning its former president was a sexual predator.
Ex-president Tim Jago sexually abused two teenage boys he knew through a sports club in mid to late 1990s.
He was convicted of eight charges of indecent assault last year and was finally named last Friday when he abandoned a years-long fight for ongoing name suppression.
Jago had been the ACT Party's president for nearly four years when he resigned from the role in late January 2023.
RNZ has previously reported the survivor's wife contacted the ACT Party on Facebook three months before Jago was charged, warning that Jago was a sexual predator.
A party staffer initially dealt with the message before ACT leader David Seymour personally responded and advised she contact a lawyer.
He gave the woman the phone number of an employment lawyer and said she and her husband were free to contact them.
Tim Jago indecently assaulted two teenagers he mentored through a sports club between 1995 and 1999. Photo: RNZ / Calvin Samuel
The survivor's wife wrote back to ACT saying her husband had decided to go to the police instead in the hope he could prevent further offending.
Speaking on Nine to Noon on Monday, Seymour was asked if he would do anything differently, including referring the survivor speak to the police at the outset.
"No, we wouldn't and again, you know, it will be easy for people to speculate without full knowledge of the facts,without having been there," Seymour said.
"I'm very confident that facing a very difficult situation, which, as it turns out, turned on some tragic circumstances, we did everything that we could that an organisation in our position faced."
The party first addressed the Jago case last on Friday, saying it had sought guidance from Paul Wicks KC at the time and followed that advice "to the letter".
Last week's statement said there was "no way" ACT could have known Jago was an abuser as the offending occured 20 years before his involvement with the party.
Speaking this morning, Seymour said attempts to link Jago's sexual offending to the ACT party were "shameful".
"The people who are out there trying to somehow drive guilt by association when there were 20 years separating the events, frankly, I think is shameful."
Jago, currently in jail serving a two-and-a-half year sentence, plans on appealing his convictions and sentence later this month.
