Preventive detention to be considered for sex offender
File image. © Andrew Bardwell
Sexualised behaviour during burglaries has been cited among the reasons the Crown is asking for an open-ended preventive detention jail term to be considered for a 31-year-old Christchurch man.
The man has admitted a charge of sexual violation of a six-year-old girl by unlawful sexual connection.
He has no previous “qualifying” sexual offence but a law change means there no longer needs to be one for preventive detention to be considered.
It all depends on the risk the man poses of further offending, and Judge Stephen O’Driscoll said in the Christchurch District Court today that the man’s risk was seen as high.
He declined jurisdiction and sent the case for sentencing in the High Court – which can impose preventive detention – on a likely December date that is still to be confirmed.
Crown prosecutor Pip Norman asked for the case to be sent to the High Court so that preventive detention could be considered. She told Judge O’Driscoll that he now had jurisdiction. “Though his history doesn’t include other qualifying offences, the requirement is simply that there is a pattern that shows the risk of further offending.”
The court had a pre-sentence report which assessed the man’s risk as high, ahead of his scheduled sentencing on the sexual violation charge, as well as objectionable publications charges. Those charges alleged he took photographs on his cell phone of a six-year-old girl’s genitalia, and that he had 200 images on his cellphone of naked girls under 10, including infants and toddlers, and girls under 12 performing oral sex on adult males. He had pleaded guilty.
The pre-sentence report referred to a 2014 psychological report on the man, and a recent report was before the court. However, the High Court may need more health assessors’ reports on the risk the man poses before it can consider preventive detention.
Defence counsel Trudi Aickin said: “He accepts that he is a high risk. He accepts and acknowledges that he needs to address what is the reason for this offending. Kia Marama has been identified as the most appropriate treatment programme for him.”
Kia Marama is a rehabilitation course carried out in Christchurch Prison for child sex offenders.
The Crown provided the court with details of the man’s previous convictions, and summaries of facts for earlier burglary convictions which it said had “sexual elements to them”.
“There are issues here that need to be addressed,” said Miss Norman.
The Crown told the court the man had previously attended Stop and Kia Marama courses for sex offenders but had not completed the programmes. He had previous convictions for making objectionable publications.
Judge O’Driscoll said all those factors combined meant he had reason to believe the case should be considered in the High Court for possible preventive detention, and remanded the man in custody for that to occur.
He continued interim name suppression but said the issue would have to be fully argued at the High Court hearing.
Category: News
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