KEY POINTS:
A favourable psychiatric report has saved a repeat sex offender from an indefinite jail term.
In the High Court at Christchurch today Justice John Fogarty stepped back from imposing a term of preventive detention on a 43-year-old man who admitted a series of sexual offences over a 10-year
period from 1986, involving two girls who were aged from about six to nine years.
The man, who was granted permanent name suppression to protect his victims, had been sent to the High Court for an open-ended jail term to be considered after District Court Judge Raoul Neave declined jurisdiction this month.
Crown counsel had earlier sought the necessary two reports from health assessors so that the preventive detention sentence could be considered.
Justice Fogarty said today a psychiatrist's report suggested instead that the offender might be able to be placed under close supervision on release from a finite prison sentence.
The report noted the man had strong motivation to try to change his behaviour and Justice Fogarty said he'd gained "a similar view" from a psychologist's report.
The man had already served three years of a 5-1/2 year jail sentence on an unrelated charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
He had a previous conviction for indecent assault before admitting a series of offences involving the young girls, pleading guilty to indecent assault, committing an indecent act with a girl aged under 12 and four charges of having unlawful sexual connection with a girl under 12.
When interviewed by police, the man said he was attracted to pre-pubescent girls.
Justice Fogarty noted the offending involved girls in the man's "household" to which he had unrestricted and unsupervised access.
He said he would sentence the man on a "stand-alone basis" and his prison term would run concurrently with and overlap his current sentence.
Justice Fogarty told the man his offending had potentially damaged his victims for the rest of their lives, "making it difficult for them to have normal happy sexual relations with adults".
He accepted the man had a "very strong motivation" to try to control his behaviour and because of "considered opinions", particularly contained in a psychiatrist's report, he viewed it as a case where preventive detention was "not the appropriate sentence".
Justice Fogarty jailed the man for six years, imposing a minimum non-parole period of three years.
- NZPA