Crown wants preventive detention for sex attacker

File photo / NZ Herald

Gareth William Davis' nightmare sex attack on a woman he abducted has led to a Crown bid to have him jailed indefinitely under preventive detention.

Davis, an unemployed 25-year-old from the suburb of Templeton, was due for sentence in the Christchurch District Court today, but the hearing was delayed to January 24 at the request of crown prosecutor Kathy Bell who said Davis was assessed as a high risk of further offending.

The remand in custody, granted by Judge Gary MacAskill, will give time for reports by a psychiatrist and a psychologist to be prepared.

The January session in the district court will decide whether Davis will be sent to the High Court which has the power to impose the open-ended jail term.

Defence counsel David Bunce opposed the Crown's bid for preventive detention saying that Davis had limited previous convictions, and a finite jail term would be preferable. The pre-sentence report recommended a substantial prison term.

Judge MacAskill said he had already formed his own view that a psychiatric report should be prepared for the sentencing judge.

Davis earlier pleaded guilty to charges of abduction, rape, four of sexual violation, wounding with reckless disregard for his victim's safety, and threatening to kill her.

The 20-year-old woman victim believed that Davis would murder her during the three-hour sex attack on July 10 when he tricked her with a text message and abducted her at knife-point.

He made her drive to an isolated rural area off the Old West Coast Road where the brutal sexual assault took place.

He cut her face with the knife when she began screaming, and later told her: "I may as well kill us both."

When he pleaded guilty, police told the court the woman was convinced that she was going to be killed and no one would find her body. "She was utterly distraught and terrified," prosecutor Sergeant John Taylor said.

- NZPA