Guard outside as rapist attacks

By JAMES GARDINER

A convicted child-rapist has assaulted an intellectually handicapped woman while under supervision.

A private security guard, paid by the Department of Corrections, was outside the room in which Lloyd Alexander McIntosh assaulted the woman.

Three months ago McIntosh was the subject of a police community warning after his release from prison.

Police learned of his latest attack more than a fortnight after it happened when the victim went to them seeking a trespass order.

Fears that McIntosh, 30, would re-offend after serving a 10-year sentence for raping a child have proved correct on two counts.

As well as assaulting the woman, he violated parole conditions by telephoning a child under 16, the Palmerston North District Court was told this week.

McIntosh admitted both charges and was remanded in custody for sentence in December.

By then the Corrections Department expects to have completed an inquiry into how McIntosh was able to attack the woman while the man supposed to be supervising him stood outside.

Police and the department also want to know why the Chubb security company, which has a national contract with the department to supervise home-detention inmates, did not report the attack.

The court was told that McIntosh convinced his state-paid Chubb minder to drive him to his victim's home then take her to his house.

The supervisor was led to believe that the woman, who McIntosh met through a special needs classmate, had been hired as a cleaner.

After she cleaned McIntosh's kitchen, he took her to his bedroom where he kissed her, pushed her on to his bed and climbed on top of her.

The supervisor was outside the bedroom door, but later told police he thought he could not enter without McIntosh's consent.

Instead he tried to stop the attack by making noises outside the door and through the bedroom window.

But it was 20 minutes before McIntosh left the room and the supervisor drove the woman home.

McIntosh later told the woman's flatmate he had nearly raped her.

Community concerns that McIntosh was a public menace erupted in July after he finished a 10-year sentence for child rape.

Police warned neighbours of his intended home in Amberley Ave, Palmerston North, that he would be living nearby, but public outrage and intense media scrutiny meant he had to go to a different address.

A new home was found for him and this time police did not warn neighbours.

"Another agency did a limited door knock in terms of immediate neighbours," Palmerston North police commander Superintendent Mark Lammas said yesterday.

"This man has to live somewhere and if police had done the notifications we would just create another Amberley Ave."

Earlier, McIntosh spent four years in the now-closed Lake Alice psychiatric hospital for raping a 6-year-old girl. He was let out in 1993 because he was not considered ill under a new definition of mental illness.

The Government ducked questions on the case yesterday. Justice Minister Phil Goff referred it to Corrections Minister Paul Swain, who said the department was handling it.

Opposition justice spokesman Tony Ryall said the "patronising do-gooders" who said McIntosh should be left alone had been proved wrong.

Tracy Mellor from the department's probation and offender services said yesterday it was known McIntosh was at high risk of reoffending and it had been arranged for him to be supervised full-time for six months after his release - the maximum time allowed by law.

Two agencies were employed to provide those services, Chubb and the Richmond Fellowship, which has a national contract to provide community care.

Under the Crimes Act, McIntosh can be jailed for a maximum of two further years.