Joseph Thompson, photographed in 1995, pleaded guilty to 129 rape and sexual violence charges, involving nearly 50 women from 1983 to 1994. Photo / Martin Sykes
Joseph Thompson, photographed in 1995, pleaded guilty to 129 rape and sexual violence charges, involving nearly 50 women from 1983 to 1994. Photo / Martin Sykes
WARNING: This article deals with sexual violence and may be distressing for some readers.
The infamous “South Auckland rapist”, who violated dozens of women and girls in a decade-long reign of terror, has spent 27 years in prison avoiding treatment for his horrific offending.
The Parole Board has decided Joseph Stephenson Thompson remains an “undue risk” and must stay in jail for at least another two years.
The board, in a decision released on Thursday, said it doubted he would be in a position to be released in 2025.
Thompson, who is now 64, was sentenced to an open-ended prison sentence of preventive detention in 1995. He has served his minimum non-parole period of 25 years.
He had been convicted on 129 charges involving the rape and sexual violation of 47 victims between 1983 and 1994 – crimes that the Parole Board described as “horrifying, violent, extensive sexual offending of women and children”.
Their ages ranged from 47 down to just 10 years old. Most of them were under 17.
The true number of his victims is believed to be closer to 70.
“It is difficult to think of any person who has brought more pain and misery to so many people in recent New Zealand history,” Justice Robert Fisher said at Thompson’s sentencing.
Previous board decisions noted that Thompson’s attacks were carefully planned and the physical violence used was sometimes extreme.
They mapped out the rehabilitative pathway that Thompson was supposed to follow.
It proposed that he complete a treatment programme for child sex offenders, and then be assessed for other courses, including perhaps a programme for sex offending against adults, a drug treatment programme, or a stopping-violence programme.
However, the board in 2021 said that Thompson was “untreated”.
It said he was motivated but anxious that other prisoners might talk about his contributions to the group treatment sessions.
“As to the current position, really there has been no progress since the 2021 hearing,” Parole Board chair Sir Ron Young said this week.
“Mr Thompson has been waitlisted for knee surgery and has been reluctant, therefore, to undertake the programmes, but thought he should get the medical treatment first and then do the programmes.
“The problem has been that he has not been referred for the treatment on his knee.”
Thompson told the board that he would let it know if he was prepared to start the sex offender treatment if the knee surgery did not happen “in the next few months”.
“We will see him again in two years’ time to keep an eye on progress,” Sir Ron said.
“We doubt whether he will be in a position to seek a release at that time.”
DNA technology led to Thompson’s arrest in 1994. When police knocked on his door early one Saturday morning, he told them: “I’ve been waiting for you guys. It had to come. I know that”.
Before being convicted of the sex crimes in 1995, Thompson had five pages of violence, property and drug offending.
During his reign of terror, South Auckland residents lived in fear - parents wouldn’t let their children walk to school.
Some added extra locks to doors and windows, or took to keeping baseball bats. Vigilante groups were formed.
Dave Henwood, one of the lead officers in the hunt for Thompson, said after his first parole hearing three years ago that he didn’t believe release was a reality.
“I don’t think he’ll ever, ever get out and I’d be very surprised if he got out in the near future.”
