‘Intense supervision’ ordered

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

An intellectually impaired man deported from Australia as a registered child sex offender failed to comply with his reporting obligations under the register here.

Felony Mystikal Henessy Harvey Williams, 21, was placed on two years intensive supervision when he appeared for sentence in a Young Adults List hearing in Gisborne District Court last week, having pleaded guilty to 19 charges for various offences between July last year, and January this year.

Six of the charges were for failing to comply with his reporting obligations as a registered sex offender — by failing to advise when he had changed addresses, travelled out of town, and by accessing social media.

The other charges were for two assaults, indecent assault of a female aged over 16, three incidents of wilful trespass, burglary (involving property valued under $500), being unlawfully in a building, dangerous driving, possession of an offensive weapon, disorderly behaviour, offensive behaviour, and wilful damage.

The offences were his first in New Zealand since being deported from Australia in 2021 under the controversial 501 scheme, for offences he committed in Melbourne that year.

He appeared in the Gisborne court last week after 101 days on remand in custody.

Judge Turitea Bolstad said reports showed Williams suffered from mental health issues and past trauma that needed to be addressed. He had foetal alcohol syndrome, significant learning difficulties, and possibly ADHD.

His offending was clearly linked to his health issues and his background, which had included abuse, neglect and abandonment.

It was evident that “a high degree of intervention was required” and that a prison term would not assist Williams “in any way”, Judge Bolstad said.

He was assessed as being high risk for reoffending but she was confident that with the appropriate support he had “every chance at rehabilitation”.

Intensive supervision was recommended by the probation service and she would impose it for the maximum term available,  to be sure Williams got the “appropriate support he deserved and required”, the judge said.

She would monitor his progress every three months.

The lead offence was the indecent assault. It and one of the other assault charges arose out of incidents on Wellington’s Courtney Place on the night of January 11, this year. Williams approached a woman at a bus stop, put his arm around her and asked for money. When she refused, he squeezed her buttocks then walked off.

Refused entry to a nearby bar, Williams grabbed a bouncer with two hands, verbally abused him, and spat in the man’s face.

The rest of the offences were in Gisborne last year.

On November 26, Williams jumped a fence into an enclosed yard and entered a building through a door, setting off alarms, before making off with two bean bags.

On November 19, he drove dangerously on Gladstone Road, passing vehicles on either side of them, including as he went through a roundabout; then driving straight through an intersection and directly into oncoming traffic, forcing motorists to swerve around him.

On that charge, he was disqualified from driving for six months.

The weapon charge and disorderly behaviour charge related to an incident about 9.30pm on September 29, in which Williams was again on Gladstone Road — this time as a pedestrian — yelling and swinging a broken plastic pole around as if it was a weapon. He used it to scratch a window at the ANZ Bank.

He walked among traffic causing vehicles to swerve to avoid him.

The day before, he had jemmied opened a window in a cabin on Gladstone Road, where he slept for the night. That resulted in the charges of unlawfully being in building and wilful damage.

The offensive behaviour charge and the other assault charge related to an incident at a motor lodge on September 25. Williams called a staff member a “privileged white bitch” after she told him the complex’s emergency housing allocation was full. He refused to leave and urinated on a garden before finally biking away.

The intensive supervision sentence imposed was converted from an end sentence of 10 months imprisonment, the judge having calculated an overall starting point of 28 months imprisonment, then giving discounts totalling 65 percent — 25 percent for Williams’ guilty pleas, 20 percent for his youth, and 20 percent for background factors.

She told Williams that being on intensive supervision was a chance for him to sort himself out — to get accommodation and employment or to go on a training course.  She reminded him that while lots of people would be tasked with helping him, ultimately it was he who had to do the work to help himself. If he did not comply, she would have little choice but to send him back to prison.

Williams was supported in court by his grandmother.

The Australian newspaper reported that Williams was sentenced by a magistrate in Victoria in May, 2021 to three months imprisonment for trafficking cannabis and robbery, 96 days imprisonment for transmitting indecent communications to a child, and was fined $1000 for committing an indictable offence while on bail.

In August that year — while Williams was awaiting sentence for charges of supplying drugs to a child and two counts of sexual penetration of a child under 16 — his lawyer Raphael di Veitri told the County Court of Victoria that Williams, who admitted the offending, feared being deported.

“With his intellectual disability and his need for support, his mother provides his housing and supports him financially.

“Deportation back to New Zealand is a matter Your Honour can consider to the burden of imprisonment,” Mr di Veitri said.

Coverage of the sentencing the following week appeared in the HeraldSun newspaper, which reported Williams as having “walked free from court” with a three-year community correction order.

Judge Fiona Todd ordered Williams to undertake judicial monitoring and seek treatment and rehabilitation. He would be registered for life as a sex offender.

Of the court proceedings, The HeraldSun reported that Williams, unemployed, caught a train to Bendigo in February, 2020 to meet up with a 14-year-old girl he met on Snapchat, then threatened her into silence.

The pair visited a shopping centre where a friend of the victim told Williams the girl was only 14 and it was illegal for them to be in a relationship.

He replied, “It’s OK as long as the police don’t find out”.

He plied his victim and another girl with drugs, then sexually assaulted the victim at the railway station before catching a train back to Melbourne.

The victim later said she “didn’t know what to do” so “just let it happen”, the court was told.

Williams returned to Bendigo by train two days later and forced her to have sex with him in an abandoned pie factory.

The court was told the girl did not want to have sex but “eventually agreed”; that Williams said for her not to tell anyone, and that later she received threatening messages from him and his sister.

Sentencing submissions reported by the HeraldSun included the defence position that Williams had an intellectual disability which lessened his culpability, to which the prosecution responded by pointing out Williams was able to catch a train from Melbourne to Bendigo and was aware having sex with a child was illegal.

The HeraldSun said the court was told Williams was a New Zealand citizen who moved to Australia when he was 13.