Stephen Rainham is banned from the internet but has been caught with Tinder and Facebook accounts on multiple occasions. Photo / 123rf
Stephen Rainham is banned from the internet but has been caught with Tinder and Facebook accounts on multiple occasions. Photo / 123rf
A convicted paedophile continues to breach his prison release conditions by accessing the internet to create dating profiles because he is “lonely”.
Stephen Rainham has been jailed for the breaches on multiple occasions but it wasn’t until he appeared in court on his latest violation that a judge concluded prison wasn’t working for the sex-offender.
In sparing the 51-year-old from another lag behind the wire, Judge Bruce Northwood said “something new” had to be tried.
“I’ve come to the conclusion by the finest of margins that home detention is appropriate … rather than the blunt instrument of a term of imprisonment,” the judge said in Palmerston North District Court yesterday.
Rainham was jailed in 2009 for two years and eight months on charges of unlawful sexual connection with a girl aged between 12 and 16 as well as sexual grooming charges.
He was released in 2011 but was subjected to an extended supervision order (ESO). The order, which enables the Department of Corrections to monitor him, ordered Rainham not to have any devices capable of accessing the internet.
Rainham appeared in Palmerston North District Court this week. Photo / Jeremy Wilkinson
But within weeks of getting out, he was caught accessing the internet and recalled to prison for nine months.
Since then, he’s incurred more than 30 convictions for breaching the ESO or his obligations as a registered child sex offender. Many of the breaches occurred when Rainham would acquire a cellphone and create Facebook accounts or profiles on various dating sites.
In his most recent offending, police discovered three cellphones in his possession last year. One of the mobiles had on it the dating app Tinder and the others had Facebook.
At his sentencing this week on the recent breaches, Judge Northwood said jail obviously wasn’t a deterrent for Rainham.
“You are definitely on notice but you’ve persisted in offending in a not-dissimilar way over the years.”
Rainham’s lawyer, Michael Ryan, made a plea to the court to help his client.
“He’s not had any meaningful treatment with a psychologist in the last ten years, in and out of prison. If he stayed out in the community for long enough then he might be able to see one and make some progress,” Ryan said.
“This might be an opportunity to get some assistance rather than just putting him back into jail.”
Ryan said Rainham was lonely and used Facebook as a way to ease that feeling, even though he knew it was a breach of his conditions.
Judge Northwood agreed to try “something new” and handed down a sentence of four months’ home detention.
“I’m taking a chance with you, I’m the first judge in a long time not to imprison you for this kind of offending.”
