KEY POINTS:
One of New Zealand's most notorious paedophiles is living on a school walking route under the 24-hour supervision of a former priest convicted of molesting altar boys.
Corrections Department psychologists have told the Parole Board that Howard Vivian Kitching, a brain-injured, serial child molester, is showing signs that "offending against children is imminent".
But the board has rejected efforts by police and Corrections to have Kitching recalled to prison, where he had been serving an indefinite jail term for 11 sexual offences against girls dating back to 1963.
Kitching has spent 32 years - more than half his life - in prison and reoffended against a girl within days of his last release in 1985.
He had earlier been considered such a risk he was sentenced to preventive detention, which means he could spend the rest of his life behind bars.
In October 2006, 22 years after he was last let out of jail, the Parole Board released Kitching into the 24-hour care of Mark Mannix Brown, a former Catholic priest jailed for 15 months in 1995 for indecently assaulting two altar boys.
The pair live on Mt Eden Rd, Auckland, about 700m from Three Kings School.
Two psychologists specialising in sex offenders have described the arrangement as "rare" - and one said it was potentially risky.
However the Parole Board maintains there is nothing unusual in the set-up. Brown is part of a wider support group which has pushed for Kitching's release and undertaken to look after him in the community.
The move to call him back to prison started last year when police were so concerned by reports of Kitching lurking at his front gate when children walked to and from school they launched a covert surveillance exercise. Kitching was seen numerous times when children walked by but the Parole Board found there was no evidence he was even looking at the children, let alone a danger to them.
Even so, a Corrections psychologist said a brain injury suffered in the 1960s may have left Kitching unable to control his impulses. She told the board his behaviour at the front gate was "an indication of escalating risk and a clear warning signal that offending against children is imminent".
The Parole Board has effectively accused Corrections officers of a witchhunt against Kitching, lashing out at those with a mindset that releasing him from jail was "unworkable".
"They were plainly wrong," the recall hearing ruling states. Kitching had remained offence-free, attended all his required sex-offender treatment programmes and his support network remained capable of supervising him, the ruling says.
Parole Board chairman Judge David Carruthers told the Herald on Sunday the board had held a six-hour hearing into Kitching. "Our job is the safety of the community, and in this case the board makes no apologies for what to date has been a highly successful release ... and I believe no one is unsafe because of this release." The lawyer appointed by the board to represent Kitching, Steve Bonnar, said his client was one of the most "managed and supervised" parolees in the system.
Nathan Gaunt, a clinical psychologist with sex offender treatment programme Safe, said about 24 per cent of sex offenders reoffended within 15 years. That rate was halved if they attended treatment programmes. He said it was "rare" to have a sex offender supervised by another in the community. But the arrangement would have its positives and negatives.
Safe chief executive Robert Ford said there was logic to the Alcoholics Anonymous-type approach, where addicts or offenders would mentor each other through a programme.
Kitching yesterday told the Herald on Sunday it was difficult to find locations "in the city" that met Parole Board requirements.
He said he would leave the residence in question soon "in accordance with the powers that be".
He said he had completed all the courses required by the Parole Board. "It is a sorry past, but I can do no more than that."
- Michelle Coursey
