Child rapist Richard Miller denies needing monitoring on his release

Richard Miller is due for release next month. Photo / 123RF

A Napier man convicted of sex crimes against young girls is arguing against intensive monitoring when he's released back into the community.

Richard Miller, 55, will have served his full sentence of nine years and nine months' imprisonment next month, after being convicted of raping and sexually abusing four young girls between 1990 and 2008.

Miller has never admitted his offending and has also claimed collusion between the victims, their families and the police.

Today at the High Court in Wellington, Miller's lawyer Matthew Phelps said they weren't arguing against an extended supervision order for when Miller was released back into the community. But they didn't agree with the length of the order or the intensive monitoring conditions.

"It is unnecessary in the circumstances of the case."

However, a Department of Corrections psychologist, whom the Herald is not naming for safety reasons, disagreed. He said Miller had a high chance of reoffending.

"For offenders with the same score [of risk factors] as Mr Miller, their sexual recidivism rate over 10 years was in excess of 50 per cent, so 51.8 per cent."

The base rate for all sex offenders in the sample was just over 18 per cent over 10 years.

"His recidivism risk, relative to other sex offenders in the sample, was notably higher."

Miller had been found to have high sexual deviancy, and high scores for psychopathy.

"His total score was above the cut-off for the strong presence of these traits," the psychologist said. He said Miller having both those traits greatly increased the chances of reoffending.

The psychologist also noted Miller had refused to participate in any treatment programmes.

"The things that I think really stand out in this assessment is that he has multiple victims, four different victims.

"They range in profile from pre-pubescent, as young as 6, through to young teenager victims who are likely to have secondary sexual features.

"What that suggests is potentially a reasonably wide victim pool, and within that pool potential victims who are more vulnerable due to their age."

The defence will make further written submissions to Justice Robert Dobson.

Justice Dobson said he would make a final ruling before next month's release date.

Miller was found guilty of committing an indecent act on a 6-year-old in September 2008 after a Napier community patrol volunteer spotted him in a car with her in Nelson Park.

The extent of his sexual offending was then brought to light, resulting in the police reopening past claims of sexual abuse against Miller.

He had sexually abused several girls over 18 years; raping one of them twice at ages 10 and 11 while he was her babysitter in 1990.

In his 2008 trial the court heard he had "cultivated the girls' families" to get into a position of trust.

He earned an extra three months' imprisonment after making a shooting gesture to the public gallery where several of his victims stood at the end of his trial.