A man who once courted publicity as a candidate for public office is now fighting to keep his name secret, even after he was ordered this week to serve a rare sentence without an end date for repeated paedophilia-related offending.
“The day my daughters told me what had happened changed everything,” the mother of his latest victims said in an anguished statement last week as she confronted the defendant in the High Court at Auckland.
The girls he abused were 3 and 5 years old when they met the defendant, young enough that they trusted every adult around them, their mother said.
“One daughter spoke as if it was normal, not even understanding that what happened to her was wrong,” she recalled.
“My other daughter cried and struggled to get the words out.
“Hearing them say those things shattered me. I found myself asking questions that no parent should ever have to ask. I tried to hold back my tears, but it felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. I felt helpless.
“He caused harm that will follow them for the rest of their lives. He changed their childhood forever.”
She has told the court that she wants society to be protected from him.
“He is not safe to be around children,” she said. “Protecting others from what my daughters went through is the only peace we can hope for.”
In a hearing last month, High Court Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith rejected the defendant’s permanent suppression bid given the “considerable and legitimate public interest in the matter”.
But the decision was quickly followed by an indication by defence lawyer Philip Hamlin that it would be challenged through the Court of Appeal. A hearing has been set for early February.
In his High Court bid, the defendant expressed fears for his physical safety - both self-harm and that he might be attacked in prison if his charges became widely known.
“[The defendant] says frankly in his affidavit that he has been advised there is little merit in advancing an application for permanent name suppression but that he wishes to proceed with the application and to appeal [anyway],” Justice Wilkinson-Smith noted.
The judge noted a specialist report submitted to the court in which it was confirmed that prisoners in the general population “are known for holding violent attitudes towards child sex offenders”. But the psychologist who authored the report also noted that “in his experience, the risk is well known and managed by the prison authorities”.
Justice Wilkinson-Smith agreed. She declined name suppression on paper but noted her hands were tied if he carried out his intention to appeal.
The Herald is limited in what it can report about the defendant’s criminal history to protect the identities of his victims and, for now, to prevent him from being identified as well.
He was charged in 2023 with sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, punishable by up to 20 years’ imprisonment, and sexual conduct with a child under 12, which carries a 10-year maximum sentence.
According to the explicit summary of facts he agreed to upon pleading guilty earlier this year, the defendant, on more than one occasion, locked the youngest child in a room and sexually abused her.
The older child was targeted one time, having told the defendant to stop when he groped her from behind.
His past offences date back decades and include possession of child sexual exploitation materials and unlawful sexual connection with a 6-year-old girl.
During last week’s hearing, the defence asked Justice Pheroze Jagose to impose a finite sentence, with reductions factored for his guilty plea, his deprived background, remorse and efforts at rehabilitation.
“He wants to make himself better,” Hamlin said. “He didn’t want to be here again. He’s embarrassed.”
Crown prosecutor Matthew Nathan advocated for a sentence of preventive detention.
The rare outcome, at the top of New Zealand’s sentencing hierarchy, is aimed at people who pose a significant and ongoing risk to public safety. Inmates serving such a sentence are released only after the Parole Board determines the risk has been reduced.
Even if they do manage to convince the Parole Board of their reform, they are managed by Corrections for the rest of their life and can be recalled to prison at any time.
Considering a finite sentence first, Justice Jagose settled on a 10-year starting point and allowed a single 10% credit for his guilty plea. It would have resulted in a nine-year sentence, with a minimum term of imprisonment of five years.
“Given your previous imprisonment sentence, your experience in custody alone seems unlikely to deter you from further offending,” the judge said of the minimum term.
“And the prospect you may be released into the community perhaps as soon as late next year is insufficient to hold you accountable for the harm you have done, or properly to denounce that conduct, or to protect the community from you.”
But that sentence was largely academic given the judge’s subsequent decision to impose preventive detention.
“Unless rehabilitated in custody, I am satisfied you are likely to reoffend if released on expiry of a determinate sentence,” the judge said.
“The pattern of your serious offending is to target girls in their childhood and early adolescence. As the judicial decisions on your previous convictions and the girls’ mother’s statement in this proceeding illustrate, your offending has caused serious harm to the community.”
He noted that separate psychological reports found the defendant to be an above-average risk of committing similar offences in future.
“They are saying your predilection to reoffend will overwhelm measures established to deter you from that,” the judge said.
The mother of the defendant’s latest victims said his actions had already caused enough harm.
His offending, she said, was deliberate and repeated.
“[He] stole pieces of their childhood,” she told the court.
“He took away their safety, their innocence, and their belief that adults protect children. He created trauma that they will carry into their teenage years, their adulthood, and into every relationship they form.
“My children deserve justice — real justice — because they are the ones who live with the aftermath every single day. He gets to move on; they are still learning how."
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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