‘High risk’ paedophile Matthew Edwards, who abused seven children, sentenced to prison

Paedophile Matthew Edwards was sentenced today in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / NZME

A “high-risk”, twice-convicted paedophile who was caught abusing seven children over the course of two decades was today sentenced to 10 and a half years’ prison for his latest slew of vile acts.

Appearing in the High Court at Auckland, Matthew Edwards was also ordered by Justice Geoffrey Venning to serve at least six years of the sentence before he can be considered for parole.

The judge did not, however, grant the Crown’s request that Edwards be held in prison indefinitely. The decision, Venning said, was “by the narrowest of margins”.

In seeking preventive detention - a procedure intended not as punitive but to protect the community from high-risk sex offenders - Crown prosecutor Charlie Piho noted two reports from health assessors. One estimated that Edwards is in the 97th percentile among sexual offenders in New Zealand in terms of risk of reoffending.

His risk is nearly five times higher than average, one of the reports prepared for the court stated. Even if he engaged in treatment, a report found, he would still present a “well above average” risk.

The report writers - a psychiatrist and a psychologist - noted “significantly limited insight” into his current offences, which relate to five children between the ages of 3 and 12 who were targeted between 2015 and 2020.

“I didn’t force them into doing anything they didn’t want to do,” the defendant was quoted saying. “They could have said no.”

But defence lawyer Shane Cassidy pointed to a potential breakthrough in his client’s rehabilitation that occurred after the first of the two pre-sentence interviews. Details of the breakthrough cannot be reported for legal reasons, but they ought to help Edwards more effectively “confront his demons” and accept responsibility for the trauma he has inflicted on his victims, Cassidy said.

Cassidy noted his client took responsibility by pleading guilty to the offences in Papakura District Court before the case was transferred to the High Court so that preventive detention could be considered. He urged the judge not to place too much stock in the estimated risk applied to his client.

“Looking at these statistics at their face value can lead to quite a distorted view of an individual’s assessed risk,” he said, noting that the evaluations are not an exact science. “There may be some people in that pool who don’t go on to reoffend at all.”

Edwards most recently pleaded guilty two counts of unlawful sexual connection of a child under 12, 10 counts of doing an indecent act on a child, six counts of knowingly making objectionable material and three counts of knowingly possessing an objectionable publication. Authorities said he abused children, filmed some of the abuse and was found to be in possession of hundreds of other child abuse images and videos that he didn’t create.

He had previously spent a stint in jail in 2003 for abusing two other children, aged 3 and 5, when he was a teenager.

His lawyer said that he enrolled in a rehabilitative programme upon his release from prison in 2004 and was eager to continue it but was disenrolled after his sentence lapsed.

Venning noted today that for about 10 years after his first release from prison, Edwards appeared to have a “relatively normal pattern” of appropriate and healthy relationships. He referred to Cassidy’s view that Edwards’ descent into daily methamphetamine use then “magnified his sexually deviant proclivities” around the time of his second phase of child abuse.

The judge expressed hope the defendant is now at a “turning point” that might be effectively managed with a lengthy but finite sentence and an extended supervision order - akin to intensive parole conditions - after his jail term is served.

In a victim impact letter read aloud by prosecutors as today’s hearing began, the mother of one of Edwards’ victims said his offending has had profound consequences for the entire family.

“My baby has been destroyed,” the mother said. “She still suffers horrific nightmares. I can’t do anything to take the pain or fear away from her.”

She wants to see her young daughter “blossom as a flower again” but right now a cloud seems to always loom over her head.

“I just want our kids to be kids and not have to carry this,” she said. “My baby is 7 years old. She’s barely started her life and she has to deal with this.”