I have adressed this on vb.com as well:
Manage threads: split up 'can manage threads' permissions

Digging up a really old thread here but was there ever anything made to overcome this?

A small improvement is possible with this: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=244599
This will allow junior moderators to move and stick threads, but not manage threads.

Thanks, although not quite what I'm looking for.

I have sponsors which moderate their own forums, I want to allow them to soft delete posts, but with that they also have the option to "Delete Posts as Spam" which means they can also ban users and delete all their posts and submit them to the stop forum spam website etc.

Is that also the case if you do not allow them to ban users?

That seems to be a bug then, because if you have set the permissions that the moderator can not ban, then he should not be able to ban with the 'delete as spam' function.