Indefinite sentence ordered for Auckland 501 Rory Stephens after child sex abuse in Australia and NZ

• Rory Stephens was sentenced to preventive detention for sexual abuse of a child.
• It occurred after he was deported from Australia, where he served a prison sentence after similar allegations.
• Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith cited his skill at deceit and high risk to the community.

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT

The last time that admitted paedophile Rory Stephens faced sentencing, inside a Perth courtroom, the New Zealander was given credit after showing empathy for his 4-year-old victim, remorse and a strong motivation to change.

But then it happened again after he served his prison sentence and was expelled to New Zealand as a 501 deportee.

This week - as Stephens appeared for sentencing again, this time in the High Court at Auckland - a judge was no longer willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

His skillful deceit about his willingness to change made him especially dangerous to the community, Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith said as she ordered him to serve a rare indeterminate sentence of preventive detention.

“I infer that you could not help yourself,” she said of his re-offending. “The risk of being found out was not protective.

“Part of your risk is your apparent ability to convince others that you’re not a risk. You present well and are compelling. You are able to manipulate others.”

Justice Michele Wilkinson-Smith sentenced Rory Stephens in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Bevan Conley

Stephens was sentenced to two years and eight months imprisonment in 2016 after pleading guilty to seven charges of indecency with a child. He was deported in 2018 after his release from prison.

Then in January last year, a 12-year-old girl made an outcry against Stephens to Auckland police, who obtained a search warrant for his home. A significant number of objectionable photos were found, including images of the child being victimised on 15 separate occasions between 2019 and 2023.

There was also sexually abusive imagery of other children that appeared to have been downloaded from the internet.

Some details of the offending have been omitted, both because of the graphic sexual detail outlined in court documents and for other legal reasons.

Under normal circumstances, Stephens would have faced up to 20 years imprisonment after pleading guilty last year to three counts of sexual violation by rape, seven counts of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, five counts of sexual conduct with a child under 12, 15 representative counts of knowingly making objectionable child exploitation publications and two representative counts of possessing objectionable child exploitation publications.

But the case was transferred from Auckland District Court to the High Court after prosecutors announced plans to explore the possibility of an indefinite sentence.

Preventive detention is aimed at the worst recidivist offenders who pose a significant and ongoing risk to public safety. Prisoners can be released, but only when the Parole Board determines the risk has been reduced to a manageable level. They are managed by Corrections for the rest of their life and can be recalled to prison at any time.

Prosecutor Rebekah Thompson said at the outset of this week’s hearing that the Crown was no longer advocating for preventive detention but emphasised that it was ultimately Justice Wilkinson-Smith’s decision to make.

The newly indifferent approach was because two pre-sentencing psychological reports gave mixed results regarding the threat posed by Stephens in the future. Preventive detention cannot be used as a punishment for especially distasteful crimes - under the law, it can only be used for public safety.

One of the psychological reports assessed Stephens as being an average risk of reoffending if he engages in treatment.

“These tools to assess risk obviously have their limitations,” the judge responded, noting that a psychological report from Australia found Stephens to be a low risk.

“It is clear to me the report from 2016 proved wholly inaccurate.”

At any rate, she said, there’s no guarantee Stephens will meaningfully engage in rehabilitation while in prison. If he doesn’t engage, he’s assessed as a high risk of reoffending.

Rory Stephens' latest sentencing took place in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Craig Kapitan

Stephens engaged in psychological treatment while on bail awaiting sentencing in Australia, but the only benefit for him appeared to be a reduced sentence, the judge said.

Sexual offender rehabilitation support was offered to him by a government agency several years after he was deported to New Zealand but he declined it.

It is now known he had been offending again at that time.

“You knew better than anyone that you needed it,” the judge said.

The judge cited his “gross and repeated breach of trust” and his “very quick recidivist offending”.

She also pointed to sections of the psychological reports that described him as minimising responsibility, having anti-social tendencies and an “entrenched need for excitement” which has manifested itself unhealthily by combining “the thrill of risk-taking behaviour ... and deviant sexual arousal”.

Stephens must have known he would eventually be caught again, and there was “either no concern about the consequences or no ability to stop himself”, the judge said.

The future risk to the community, she concluded, is “unacceptably high”.

Stephens’ victim, now 14, wanted to face him at sentencing but it was agreed with her psychologist that it would be too damaging, her mother said during an emotional victim impact statement that started the hearing.

“She was groomed over a long period of time,” the mother said.

“She carried the weight of this abuse in silence for so long. No child should have to carry that emotional burden.”

She described her daughter as being in a constant state of hyper-vigilance, unable to be left alone and suffering flashbacks and anxiety after having seen “exactly what evil looks like”.

“I hear her crying herself to sleep many nights,” the mother said.

“It breaks me because I couldn’t protect her...

“Her wounds are deep and her healing will take time.”

She encouraged the judge not to let the justice system be duped again.

“He has been given freedom once and he used it to ... hurt my child,” she said. “He is a danger to public safety.”

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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