Sex history kept from judge

Crucial information that might have prevented the rape of an 8-year-old Christchurch girl was excluded from a report on her teenage attacker, a review reveals.

The 17-year-old youth raped the girl on April 9 after he lured her and her brother to a neighbourhood park.

He had befriended the children while doing community work at a school as part of a sentence for a range of offences, including burglary.

The Community Probation Service internal report into the handling of the teenager's placement at the school shows a probation officer excluded information about the youth's sexual behaviour from a Sentencing Planning Indicator (SPI) document.

The document was for the youth's sentencing on March 22 but did not mention his sexual history obtained from Child, Youth and Family.

If it had, the youth would most likely not have been placed in the school, review investigator Nick Pearce said in the report.

"Had full information regarding sexual issues been made available to staff managing his community work sentence, either through a reference in the SPI document or through the probation officer, it is highly unlikely that [the offender] would have been placed with a school to complete his hours of community work," he said.

The report, obtained under the Official Information Act, also shows:

* It took the Probation Service eight days to act on warnings from the teenager's mother that her son could pose a danger to children at the school. The teenager was removed on April 8, eight days after his mother phoned the Probation Service expressing her concerns and one day before the rape.

* The teenager's case worker and the principal of the school were not initially told of his sexually deviant past but were informed before the April 9 rape.

* When the school principal was finally told of the teenager's past, he was told only about historic incidents and not of more recent concerns raised while he was in Child, Youth and Family care.

The girl's mother said yesterday that she could not understand how so many mistakes could have been made.

"At the start, I was really angry at [the offender], but I just think they set this kid up. They set him up to fail," she said.

The school principal did not want to comment and said the safety of pupils and their learning were his focus.

"All I can say is that so much distress has been caused but it doesn't alter the fact that we are working very hard on the needs of the people concerned."

The internal investigation was completed in July - a month before the offender was jailed after pleading guilty to the rape.

It made four recommendations to ensure better internal communication, the recognition of significant threats to public safety and the review of guidelines for sentencing reports.

It also highlighted the excessive time it took for full information regarding the offender's sexual deviancy to reach the attention of the school principal.

It took five days following the March 31 call from the offender's mother to a Reducing Youth Offending Programme worker, for information about the teenager's sexual history to be passed on to the probation officer overseeing his supervision.

It was a further two days before the teenager's case manager received an email and voice message alerting him to the concerns.

In an April 8 meeting between the principal and the case manager, it was decided to remove the youth.

A spokesman for Corrections Minister Paul Swain reiterated the minister's concern about the case but said his position had not changed.

He expected a report early next month on the implementation of the recommendations laid out in the internal investigation.

He would then decide whether further action was needed.

The case

* A 17-year-old youth with a history of sexual deviancy was sentenced to do community work in a school.

* He befriended an 8-year-old girl there and raped her.

* A probation officer knew about the youth's past but did not tell the court.

- NZPA