July 22, 2011

Jail for sex offender's barbecue visit

By David Clarkson at Christchurch Men's Prison

A convicted sex offender is back in jail for skipping out on his extended supervision order to attend a barbecue.

It was the second breach of the order for Kiel Andrew Pearce, 25.

When he was sentenced for the first breach of the order a year ago, he got eight months? jail.

At a Christchurch District Court sitting inside the men?s prison today, Judge Colin Doherty gave him nine months.

The 10-year orders are sometimes imposed by the courts on convicted sex offenders at the end of their prison sentences so that they remain under supervision after their release.

Pearce was jailed for 25 months in September 2007 for a series of charges including a sexual assault on a seven-year-old girl. That offending started soon after his release from prison on convictions for assault, indecent assault on an adult female, burglary, and offensive behaviour.

Last year, he cut off his electronic bracelet and went on the run from the Christchurch half-way house where he was staying. Police said he may have taken a kitchen knife with him when he fled the Racecourse Road house in June 2010. He was caught and sentenced the following month.

Today he admitted charges of having a bottle with the intention of using it as a weapon, assault on a Corrections Department staff member, and breach of the supervision order.

Police prosecutor Bronwen Skea said the officers had gone to check on him at his home when they found him drunk and agitated.

He abused the woman officer and pushed the man in the chest. He then followed them outside and threw a bottle which smashed and showered them with glass. ?He was arrested but not interviewed due to his abusive and aggressive state.?

Corrections said he was living under the order from August 2009. He breached the order by leaving the property without permission on March 13 this year, for about six hours.

Defence counsel Phillip Allan said Pearce was on the most restrictive type of supervision sentence. He had only recently been allowed a little time to himself. ?He took it upon himself to go off to a barbecue for some friends he had made.?

He had returned to the address himself, but had been intoxicated and ?acted out? when the officers came to check on him. He felt the male officer had been aggressive towards him.

Judge Doherty jailed him to reinforce that he had to ?knuckle down? to carry out the terms of the order, and that he must not act this way towards officers charged with protecting him and the community.