KEY POINTS:
When Gary Christopher Webster befriended a group of young girls, he took them to museums, swimming pools and the circus.
But on expeditions to children's indoor playgrounds, he would separate one of the girls and take her to the adults' toilets to perform indecencies on her.
The 51-year-old
Otahuhu truck driver appeared in the High Court at Auckland yesterday for sentencing on three representative indecency charges, after admitting to a raft of offences that included touching the 5-year-old girl indecently about 20 times over an 18-month period.
He had met the child after becoming friendly with her mother in mid-2004, and after winning her mother's trust would take the girl, her younger sister and another child on twice-monthly outings.
No one knew, however, that Webster had been sentenced to four years in prison in Australia in the 1990s for 13 sexual offences on children aged 5 to 14 years.
His Australian victims included four girls and a boy.
The offending stopped after Webster went into a police station and made a voluntary confession after joining the Cook Islands Church of Latter Day Saints.
He was deported back to New Zealand in 1996.
Webster's latest crimes would normally have been dealt with in the District Court, but his criminal history meant he was a candidate for preventive detention.
Of the five qualifying criteria for preventive detention, Webster fitted four of them, Justice Marion Frater said yesterday. His pattern of offending qualified, as did his ability to cause serious public harm, she said.
Webster also had a high likelihood of repeat offending and had failed to address his sex attacks in therapy.
The court also learned of the trauma Webster inflicted on his victim - now 7 years old - through victim impact reports read at sentencing.
"I feel sorry about Gary touching me ... I would always say to him to stop, but he said no. Gary would touch me and tickle me ... I liked Gary when he would not touch me, now I don't like him."
The girl's parents also spoke of the effects of Webster's offending. Their daughter was now a reclusive girl, who no longer enjoyed school and was having "huge problems" socially, her mother said.
Her father said he still suffered nightmares thinking about Webster.
Webster avoided preventive detention after Justice Frater ruled he could be dealt with through extended supervision and monitoring on his release from prison.
She sentenced him to 5 years, with a minimum non-parole period of 3 years.