A sex offender has been making offensive calls from behind bars.
A Whangarei sex offender has made offensive 0800 calls from prison to women working in government departments.
Now a law reformist is calling on parole hearings for serial offenders to be postponed for a maximum of five years as directed by Parliament so the community gets a loud message their behaviour will not be tolerated.
The call from the Sensible Sentencing Trust follows revelations a Whangarei man jailed indefinitely for predatory sexual offending against women made offensive calls from inside the prison to females working in government departments on their 0800 numbers.
The Parole Board has denied Frederick John Nash freedom for the second time since he was sentenced to preventive detention by the High Court in Whangarei in December 2008.
Indecency with animals and ongoing convictions for offensive use of a telephone with sexually inappropriate connotation were among charges he pleaded guilty to and was sentenced for.
He is the second Northland prisoner caught breaking the law from behind bars. Phillip Andre Mahanga, who is serving a three-year sentence for the manslaughter of his partner Patricia Ann (Wowo) McGrath, has been taking methamphetamine in prison and was denied parole for the third time this month.
Trust founder Garth McVicar said the two cases were just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the number of dangerous offenders who come up for parole.
"What we're really getting is the consequence of these offender-friendly legal process where the justice system's philosophy is everyone could be rehabilitated and now that's coming back to haunt us.
"Last year, the board was given five-year postponement so the victims are not going to be traumatised and I think the Parole Board should use its discretion and order five-year postponement," he said.
Mr McVicar said if prisoners were taking advantage of the parole system, the justice system needed to come down on them like a sledgehammer.
The board fixed the postponement order for Nash for three years, unless he is considered suitable for release before that timeframe.
The 54-year-old was first denied parole in August 2013, partly because he was not rehabilitated, and again earlier this month because counselling in successfully dealing with his propensity for sexual deviancy has been unsuccessful.
Between January 1 and 27 this year, the board said Nash made 35 nuisance phone calls, mostly to women from which seven featured inappropriate sexual references that prompted call recipients to lodge complaints with Corrections. He has since been charged with disobeying a lawful order of an officer.
Nash told the board he "enjoyed" the activity but later realised it was wrong.
No calls were made to Nash's victims.
Calls by prisoners are monitored on a random or targeted basis, except for calls to the Ombudsman, lawyers, Crimestoppers, MPs, and some government agencies.
Jeanette Burns, Corrections' regional commissioner northern, confirmed calls were made on the 0800 numbers to government departments.
"Following complaints from a government department he faces internal charges and has had his phone privileges significantly restricted," she said.
The board said limited or no progress was made from the 28 one-on-one sessions Nash had with a psychologist in 2003 and he had been assessed as unsuitable for group-based treatment.
He had a fixation on female staff in prison and there were clearly major issues around his sexual arousal, entitlement and violent propensities, it said.
Nash's criminal history started in 1977 with a conviction for indecency with an animal and since then there had been numerous convictions for indecent assaults on women.