KEY POINTS:
A convicted child-sex offender who repeatedly climbed over a fence into a property where a 5-year-old girl lived appeared in Napier District Court yesterday charged with breaching his supervision order.
Mataroa Barton, 18, who pleaded guilty to the breach before Judge Tony Adeane, was last year sentenced in Pukekohe District Court to two years of 24-hour supervision after being convicted of numerous charges of sexual acts with children under the age of 12.
He is now in a residential youth justice facility in Auckland.
Judge Adeane gave Barton a deferred sentence on the breach of supervision charge, ordering him to come up for sentence if called upon within 12 months.
A Ministry of Social Development inquiry has begun into how Barton was able to get over the fence into the neighbouring Napier property eight times without his two supervisors realising. Barton was confronted by the girl's mother and the police were called.
At an earlier court appearance, Barton's lawyer, Richard Stone, said his client had not climbed the fence to peer into the girl's bedroom window, but to pick up cigarette butts, as he was not allowed to smoke in the house he was staying at. He was put under supervision in a motel after the police became involved, before being sent to the Auckland facility.
He is undergoing a rehabilitation programme.
Judge Adeane said Barton's performance while his programme was being put into place had been "inadequate".
- NZPA
