KEY POINTS:
The High Court has ordered a psychopathic deviant with a history as a sexual predator of boys to be electronically tagged over the next nine years.
The Corrections Department sought the order even though the pederast, Timothy Roch McDonnell, 46, was released several years ago from a lengthy jail term.
It told a May 2007 hearing before Justice David Baragwanath in Auckland that McDonnell declined to engage in a release plan before his release, and the probation service reported he was "associating with certain individuals".
The service was contacted by police after McDonnell was found in a car stopped after a chase in Auckland's Liverpool St, "which is notorious for underage prostitutes" and apparently under the influence of drugs, Justice Baragwanath said in a judgment released yesterday .
McDonnell was a hypnotist jailed in December 1995 for using his professional skills to prey on boys aged 14 to 16 years.
He was jailed for 10 years for the sexual violation of a 15-year-old and sentenced to lesser terms on five other counts of sexual violation and two of indecent assault.
McDonnell studied for three years for the priesthood before becoming a salesman and was conducting public seminars on hypnotism when he was offending.
He described himself as a bisexual disowned by his family, though he had one sibling who was a brilliant scientist and one who was schizophrenic.
The sentencing judge in 1995 said McDonnell was very skilled in hypnosis, a talent which he had distorted to commit the offences. He also lessened the resistance of his victims with alcohol, cannabis and amyl nitrate, though the judge emphasised the gravity of an expert hypnotist using his skill to abuse young boys.
After being initially charged, he went on to commit further offences of sexual violation and indecent assault, for which he was also convicted.
McDonnell's lawyer, Michael Bott, argued that the department's application for a extended supervision order on July 1, 2005 was supported by one of its senior psychologists, Dr Ronnie Zeussman, who it knew was due to leave the country and would not be available for cross-examination.
The judge said Parliament had not said what should happen when an "assessor" was unavailable but he said the court should not adopt a stance "which could frustrate the reduction of risk to members of the community" that the law was designed to achieve.
His judgment canvassed the merits of using complex statistical and mathematical techniques in assessing the likelihood of a sexual predator reoffending.
On those measures McDonnell was found to have a very high score, "based on the presence of a sexually deviant lifestyle, deviant sexual preference, sexual offending cycle, offence planning and sexual compulsivity", he said.
"As with flying in cloud, failure to believe the instruments can lead to disaster."
McDonnell "has been shown to be a pederast who has used his skilled as a hypnotist to subject vulnerable young boys to abuse", said the judge.
- NZPA
