Andrew Stuart Jackson sentenced to preventive detention for two decades of child abuse

Andrew Stuart Jackson has been jailed for sexual offending that spanned two decades. Photo / Tara Shaskey

WARNING: This article deals with the issue of sexual abuse and may be distressing for some readers.

A sexual predator made several young girls his “playthingS” for two decades, frequently raping and abusing them and punishing them when they resisted.

Now the victims have told Andrew Stuart Jackson it is his turn to be punished as he was today handed down a life sentence for his prolonged, controlling and deviant offending.

“After everything I went through, I am proud to say I will never let you control me again,” one of the victims told Jackson in the High Court at New Plymouth.

“You are now being held accountable for your actions and I am grateful for that. In your words ‘you do wrong, you need to be punished’.”

Jackson, 54, appeared for sentencing on 28 charges, many of which were representative, meaning he committed multiple offences of the same type in similar circumstances.

They include rape, sexual violation by unlawful connection, sexual conduct with a young person, indecency with a young person and one charge of knowingly distributing objectionable publications.

He was due to defend the charges earlier this year but changed his plea before trial.

The charges relate to four victims and cover offending which spanned two decades, beginning in the early 2000s.

Jackson had drummed into his victims that they were worthless, stupid and unlovable.

He had a variety of deviant sexual interests and a fetish for wearing women’s underwear.

In addition to abusing the girls, he took sexual photos of them and uploaded them to the internet.

At the outset of the hearing, three of the victims, all of whom have automatic name suppression, gave harrowing statements detailing the psychological and sexual abuse Jackson subjected them to.

‘I just wanted to die’

They spoke about the significant toll the abuse continues to take on their mental health with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and a major depressive disorder being a few of the diagnoses they battle between them.

The victims, who are now adults, have nightmares, some recurring. One of the women said she regularly dreamed about Jackson angrily raping her in her late teens.

Another said her sleep was so affected she only manages 30 minutes at a time and screams and bites herself while she is asleep. She still can not sleep in a room by herself.

He was sentenced in the High Court at New Plymouth. Photo / Tara Shaskey

That same woman said Jackson taught her that her body was not her own and that saying “no” did not count, it just meant she was “a tease”.

She went on to believe that everybody wanted to rape her and that all relationships were dangerous.

Jackson told the woman that crying was manipulative and as a result, she continued to repress her emotions.

“I am still terrified to cry.”

When she was 14, she tried to seek help by telling her school she was being abused but in the end, nothing was done and the abuse continued. She lost faith in those meant to protect her.

After Jackson was eventually arrested in 2022, she sought help from the mental health crisis team.

“I just wanted to die because of what he has done to me ... my duty to remain alive was done, which meant I was done.”

But she, and the other victims, also spoke about regaining their power, finding freedom and happiness, and discovering who they truly are and the wonderful attributes they possess.

“You may have taken my childhood, innocence and trust but I need you to know that you did not break me,” the woman told Jackson.

She wanted to thank him for one thing.

“Without you, I wouldn’t know how brave and strong I am.”

An indeterminate prison sentence

Crown prosecutor Jacob Bourke said Jackson had made his victims his “sexual playthings”.

He submitted the offending was planned and premeditated to a high degree, involved prolonged grooming, and caused significant harm to the victims who were vulnerable.

Bourke sought a sentence of preventive detention, an effective life sentence.

But, defence lawyer Paul Keegan argued against preventive detention, describing it as the most extreme sentence.

He submitted it should only be imposed when all rehabilitative options have been exhausted, and that was not the case for Jackson, who he said was willing to undertake rehabilitation programmes.

Keegan accepted there were many aggravating factors involved and offered little in mitigation. He acknowledged a lengthy term of imprisonment was inevitable and sought an end sentence of no more than 20 years.

Justice Peter Churchman described the scale of Jackson’s offending as immense. He said he had groomed his victims from a young age and the abuse continued until they were young adults.

Reports provided to the court assessed Jackson as a high risk of reoffending and detailed how he had minimised his actions and sought to blame his victims.

Justice Churchman said that was “disturbing”. He did not accept Jackson’s willingness to engage in rehabilitative programmes was genuine.

He found no mitigating factors present in the offending and sentenced him to preventive detention with a minimum period of imprisonment of nine years. He said a lengthy determinate sentence was not enough to keep the public safe from Jackson.

Preventive detention is an open-ended jail term designed to protect the community from high-risk violent or sexual offenders. If the Parole Board ever considers Jackson safe to release, he will be managed by Corrections for the rest of his life and can be recalled to prison at any time.

Justice Churchman said that if a determinate sentence had been imposed it would have been one of 21 years and seven months imprisonment, which took into account a 10% discount for the late guilty plea.

He said Jackson was indiscriminately attracted to prepubescent girls, had the compulsion to control others, and his sexual appetite was not diminishing with age.

Tara Shaskey joined NZME in 2022 as a news director and Open Justice reporter. She has been a reporter since 2014 and previously worked at Stuff covering crime and justice, arts and entertainment, and Māori issues.