While the judge banned any cameras in Court, Te Kāea reporter Heeni Brown was there and reported that Parker was present for the entire hearing, however media was not permitted to share any details of proceedings.
Parker will reappear in Court on April 10, while proceedings continued in Court, outside many members of the Kaitaia community took part in a huge protest march.
The key message of the march was to encourage communities to pull together and commit to ending child abuse.
Te Taitokerau MP, Hone Harawira attended the march, he claims the key to stopping these kinds of situations is to change parents attitudes so they know that hitting children is NOT for their own good.
Fiona Lovatt is the former principal who objected to James Parker's teaching registration over 20 years ago.
She says she was happy to finally see the community as a whole standing together on the issue of protecting children.
James Parker faces a total of 72 charges and he is yet to make a plea on 23 of those charges.
While many are eagerly awaiting his sentence Harawira says the concern shouldn’t be what he gets but instead should focus on preventing this from ever happening again in the community.