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Paedophile discharged without conviction because “He makes people laugh”.
I rock! I got away with molesting my daughter!
A New Zealand so-called “Celebrity Comedian”, who had pleaded guilty to charges of sexually assaulting his 4-year-old daughter, was discharged without conviction by Judge Philippa Cunningham, because apparently “He’s a talented New Zealander. He makes people laugh”. Personally I’d never heard of this guy before this and I’m certainly not laughing now.
From the New Zealand Herald:
About a dozen protesters gathered outside Auckland District Court today to express their outrage at recent decision where a judge allowed a well known comedian to walk free from sex charges against his 4-year-old daughter.
The court was told that the man went to bed with his partner after returning home drunk from a Christmas work party in December 2009. After he fell asleep, his daughter got into bed with them.
According to the police summary of facts the man laid his daughter on her back, pulled down her pyjama pants and nappy and kissed her. The man’s partner woke up and asked him what he was doing. He replied: “I thought it was you.” He later told police that he remembered nothing of the incident.
Judge Philippa Cunningham discharged the man without conviction after he pleaded guilty to a charge of performing an indecent act. Protest spokeswoman Leonie Morris, of the Coalition for the Safety of Women and Children, said she was outraged by the decision, which sent the wrong message about sexual assault on children.
“One of the horrifying aspects of this case was the so-called ‘reason’ for the assault was that he was under the influence of alcohol and we are sick to the back teeth of this being used as an excuse. It is not an excuse.
“Unfortunately, we still do live in a society that talks about prioritising children but doesn’t do that in practice. This Government spends millions and millions of dollars on rugby but peanuts on protecting children from child sexual assault.”
The court should have directed the man to receive sexual offender treatment to ensure that he doesn’t offend again, she said. “This man has not had treatment. What’s to stop him from sexually assaulting another child in the future?”
The man’s lawyer, Marie Dyhrberg, told the court her client should be allowed to keep his record clean. She said a conviction would make it hard for him to work again as a comedian.
Judge Cunningham said the consequences of a conviction would outweigh the gravity of the offence. She also granted the man permanent name suppression to protect the identity of his daughter. “He’s a talented New Zealander. He makes people laugh. Laughter is an incredible medicine and we all need lots of it.” the judge said.
Murderer/rapist up for parole.
Peter George Davis, rapist and murderer.
Peter George Davis, who in 1992 raped and strangled 8 year old Sarah Curry, will be considered for parole at a hearing in the week beginning May 16.
Invercargill girl’s killer in parole bid.
Parole will be considered next month for the man jailed for raping and murdering Invercargill girl Sarah Curry 19 years ago. A New Zealand Parole Board letter sent to a family member says Peter George Davis, 63, will be considered for parole at a hearing in the week beginning May 16.
Davis previously appeared before the board in May last year but he did not seek parole. Serving a life sentence and preventive detention, Davis, then 44, raped the 8-year-old, strangled her and left her body in a reserve on the side of Bluff Rd, in Invercargill, on January 21, 1992.
In his written decision after Davis’ previous hearing, board chairman Judge David Carruthers said Davis fell into an “unusual category of prisoner” and was one of the few inmates serving a life sentence and preventive detention in New Zealand. “In this case he earned both of those sentences because of the truly horrific nature of what he did all those years ago, ” Judge Carruthers said.
Davis did not seek parole at the hearing, instead asking to be returned to a child sex-offenders programme within the prison system. The hearing was the first in three years after the board made a postponement order in 2007 to allow for an independent psychological assessment into the risk of Davis reoffending.
That risk was still found to be real and Davis had not responded adequately to the treatment that had already been given to him. The board resolved to reconsider Davis’ case this year, but “no promises are being made at all in Mr Davis’ case,” Judge Carruthers says in last year’s decision.
Next month’s hearing will be Davis’ seventh since he became eligible for parole in 2002. The family member who provided the letter to The Southland Times questioned why Davis was even being considered for parole at all because “he should rot in hell”.
78-year-old pensioner jailed for crimes against his children.
A 78-year-old pensioner, who has name suppression in order to protect his victims, has been sentenced to 14 years in prison. His crimes span almost three decades, and include forcing his own children to have sex, raping his son’s girlfriends and brutally beating his children between 1963 and 1990.
Brutal abuser sentenced to 14 years in prison.
A man who terrorised his children for three decades has now lost his freedom. At Palmerston North District Court on Thursday, Judge Les Atkins sentenced a 78-year-old pensioner, who has name suppression to protect his seven victims, to 14 years in prison.
With “some reluctance” Judge Atkins said he did not impose a minimum sentence. “Your failure to take any responsibility for the agony you have caused people is extraordinary.” In a three-week trial last year, a jury found the man guilty of 21 charges including forcing his children to have sex, raping his son’s girlfriends and brutally beating his children between 1963 and 1990.
He has nine children and was married three times. Police have described the case as “one of the worst and most complex” of Operation Hope, an operation set up to manage uninvestigated reports of child abuse in the Wellington police district. The former railway worker became a life-long sickness beneficiary when he hurt his back.
Judge Atkins said the man did not accept what he had done and had tried to blame his offending on others. A psychological report about the man said he had a grandiose sense of self entitlement and psychopathic characteristics. He was still a risk to two daughters who supported him and were very much under his control.
The first complaints about the man were laid in 1974, but initial concerns fell on deaf ears and he was not arrested until January 2009. Complaints were laid with police in 1988 and 1990 but got nowhere. Today the man hobbled into court, supported by a walking frame.
Grey track pants were pulled high over his waist. When Judge Atkins read through the charges the man scoffed as he heard about his unsuccessful attempt to rape his daughter. At other times he shock his head, or mouthed “bullshit”, still unwilling to accept what he had done.
When his sentence was read, he didn’t flinch. The man stared back at his youngest son and one of his daughters as they read emotional victim impact statements to the court. For a second he flashed a smile as his son eye-balled him. Both children, whose names are also suppressed, were angry the man made the family go through a three-week trial.
“You have ruined so many lives and you have shattered me as a person,” his son said. “To me you are worse than a killer. A killer leaves his victims dead. You killed us and you kept us living. You killed our hearts, you killed our souls and you killed our spirits. At least when you are physically dead you don’t feel the pain anymore.”
The son said he tried to kill himself as the case progressed through the courts. And the man’s daughter, who is 49, said she always shied away from arguments. Judge Atkins praised the courage of the man’s victims in coming forward. Crown prosecutor Chris Shannon said the man should be sent to prison for between 19 and 23 years, with a set minimum term.
Mr Shannon dismissed concerns about the man’s health, noting the psychological report said he complained about his condition more ahead of court appearances. Defence lawyer Fergus Steedman accepted all convictions were appropriate, even if his client did not, but said the Crown’s suggested prison term was based on vengeance. A 10-year prison sentence was more appropriate.
The man was not a danger to the community as he had not offended since 1990. “[But] he’s allowed himself to forget the things that he’s done or the things he’s said. I don’t know how he’s done it,” Mr Steedman said. The lawyer was criticised by the man for the way he handled the trial, but Judge Atkins offered Mr Steedman support, saying he was skilful and experienced.
The Dutch-born man came to New Zealand in 1952. Between 1963 and 1990 he moved his family around the lower North Island. At various times he lived in Kaitoke, Pahiatua, Eketahuna, Dannevirke, Whanganui and Palmerston North. Twenty-five witnesses gave evidence at last year’s trial. The jury found the man not guilty on 11 charges relating to a girl who went to school with one of the man’s daughters.
Wellington district child protection team head Detective Senior Sergeant Tusha Penny said the sentencing was the culmination of two years of investigative work. “I want today’s sentencing to send a clear message to all communities across New Zealand that adult victims of historic sexual offending can come forward and can make a complaint to the New Zealand Police and know that it will be fully investigated.”
TWO-YEAR INVESTIGATION
Today’s sentencing marks the end of two years’ exhaustive investigations for police. Although, as Wellington District child protection team head detective sergeant Tusha Penny said, there might be even more abuse to uncover more victims awaiting some sort of justice. “We do not accept that we’ve presented the totality of his offending,” she said.
“This case is a prime example of how we can get justice for victims of sexual offences, so if people are sitting there reading the newspaper, hearing this story, it’s really important that police send a message that victims of sexual offending can come forward and can make a complaint to us and that it will be investigated.”
The man was arrested in January 2009. The first person to come forward was one of his daughters, who lives in Wairarapa. Inquiries into her complaints gradually uncovered the sad story of decades of abuse. Those who testified in court, at the man’s three-week trial last year, were real heroes, Ms Penny said.
“Those victims, particularly when they’ve been abused as children, who come forward to make a complaint, who sit inside a courtroom and are subject to hours of cross-examination, they are heroes because that’s real courage under fire.” The officer in charge of the case, Detective Kylie Schaare, regularly spoke to victims on the phone at night. Often they were feeling suicidal and felt they had nowhere else to turn.
After the man’s trial finished last year, Ms Penny said some of his victims waited for two hours outside court for Ms Schaare to appear. “It was quite moving as I saw two of the male victims come up to her and hug her. I heard one of them say to Kylie, ‘we lost our faith in the police and you’ve given it back to us’.” Up to eight people worked on this case, which Ms Penny said was one of the more complex and demanding in Operation Hope.
The only comparison was with the Blenheim man, Stewart Murray Wilson, who was convicted in 1996 for sex offending over a 23-year-period, including charges of bestiality and rape. But making this case that much harder was the lack of remorse shown by the Dutch-born man, whose offending was predatorial and depraved, she said.
Ms Schaare agreed: “It just makes you more determined to get justice for these people when you hear what they’ve had to suffer and what they’ve gone through.”
Paroled sex offender caught in bed with 14-year-old girl.
Convicted sex offender Shane Frederick Stoneham, 26, who was supposedly being monitored 24 hours a day, has been caught in bed with a 14-year-old girl.
Child-sex offender caught in bed with 14-year-old.
A high-risk convicted sex offender was allegedly found in bed with a missing underage girl when he was supposed to be under round-the-clock watch. It is understood a probation officer discovered Shane Frederick Stoneham, 26, in bed with a 14-year-old girl at a Porirua address on November 22 last year. She had been reported missing by her family, but she said after the incident that she loved Stoneham.
Police arrested Stoneham that day, and he allegedly assaulted a constable. Corrections Minister Judith Collins was informed within hours of the incident, a Corrections Department spokeswoman said yesterday. But the department is refusing to answer questions about the monitoring failure. Corrections was responsible for supervising Stoneham in the community till 2018 and he was ordered not to have contact with any person under 16.
At the time of the incident, a minder from a contracted company was supposed to be monitoring Stoneham 24 hours a day. It is understood that company’s contract with Corrections has now been terminated, but the department refused to provide its name or give any other details yesterday. Stoneham was last freed from prison in 2008 after the Parole Board repeatedly refused to release him early.
“The psychiatrist was of the clear view that his lack of empathy with other people’s feelings and motivations will bring him back in conflict with the law and that there is a clear need for very strict supervision …” the board said in 2008 before he was freed. “His risk of return is very high because he has no insight into his behaviour.”
The board also noted his probation officer’s “grave concern” about the risk to the community. Stoneham had served a three-year, nine-month sentence for unlawful sexual connection with a girl and for assaulting a Parole Board member. He was ordered upon release to complete 10 years of extended supervision – an order reserved for offenders assessed as having a “real and ongoing” risk of further sexual offences against those under 16 years of age or with a significant impairment.
He is in custody and has pleaded not guilty to breaching the order six times between September and November last year. Upper Hutt District Court was told in November that the girl had presented herself to Stoneham as someone over the age of 16. He has also pleaded not guilty to assaulting a constable on the day of his arrest and intentionally damaging his electronic monitoring bracelet and a cell wall. He is due to reappear next month.
Corrections Department corporate affairs manager Julie McBurney said that details of the monitoring failure were pertinent to the prosecution. “We believe we have a really strong case and it’s in [the] public interest that we are able to prosecute that through the courts and we don’t want to say anything that might pose a problem.”
But the monitoring failure comes four years after criticisms were levelled at Corrections when Graeme Burton murdered Karl Kuchenbecker while on parole, and four years after prisoner Liam Ashley was murdered in a contracted prison van operated by Chubb Security. Corrections appointed an expert panel to redesign its Community Probation Services after the auditor-general released a scathing report on the service in 2009.
Former Corrections chief executive Barry Matthews said before his retirement in December last year that one of his top three achievements was improving the sentence compliance of offenders. “If offenders don’t comply we’re quickly on to them to take action.”
No jail time for radiologist caught with 50,000 images of child porn.
Below is another example of the New Zealand justice system’s liberal attitude towards the exploitation of children by so-called “respected” members of society.
Radiologist’s ‘voyeuristic’ offending saddens judge.
A Wellington judge has told a doctor appearing on child exploitation charges that he was “extremely sad” to sentence him because there was a worldwide shortage in his profession. Wellington trainee radiologist Andrew Jeremy Dunkley, 35, was sentenced in Wellington District Court yesterday on six charges of possessing objectionable publications after police discovered 50,000 images on his computer.
Dunkley’s house was raided in September and his computer seized after a tip-off that resulted from an international police operation. Crown prosecutor Alice McCobbin-Howell said Dunkley had admitted to police that he had been accessing images of children on the internet for the past 10 years. The international investigation had led to three children in Britain being identified and removed from sexually abusive homes, she said.
“The children depicted in the images are real children and this is not victimless offending.” Defence lawyer Greg King said the 50,000 images had not been downloaded and stored but accumulated on the computer’s cache after visiting websites. The images were at the low end of the scale and involved children aged between 10 and 15 rather than prepubescent girls, he said.
Before his arrest, Dunkley, who had six weeks left until he became a consultant, had planned to move to Adelaide with his pregnant wife and young child. He felt “shame and remorse” and would have to work extremely hard to have a chance to work in his profession again, Mr King said. Judge Bruce Davidson said Dunkley had dealt with the situation since his arrest “professionally and responsibly” by telling his employer and pre-enrolling in a rehabilitation programme.
Dunkley’s offending had been described by his psychologist as “voyeuristic” with little chance of his behaviour escalating. He hoped Dunkley could retain a position within radiology. “I find the fact that I have to sentence you incredibly sad … you were about to be made a consultant in an area of medical speciality that there is a New Zealand and worldwide shortage for.”
He sentenced Dunkley to 160 hours’ community work and 180 hours’ intensive supervision. Acting Detective Senior Sergeant Barry Bysouth, of the Wellington district Child Protection Team, said Dunkley was a perfect example of the crime that was spread over the socio-economic spectrum. “He was in a position of trust, he wasn’t someone you’d look at twice that may be involved in that type of behaviour.”
The Child Protection Team preferred to use the term “child exploitation” rather than “pornography” because pornography normalised nudity while exploitation was about victims of child sexual abuse, he said. Capital & Coast District Health Board acting chief executive Shaun Drummond said Dunkley was fired after his arrest. Dunkley is still registered as a doctor but Medical Council spokesman George Symmes said it could change after a disciplinary process.
Man in court for killing 5 year old Sahara Jayde Baker-Koro.
Kerry Ratana
Kerry Ratana, 24, has appeared in court charged with the rape and murder of Sahara Jayde Baker-Koro, aged 5 years old, which happened on December 21 last year. Just three months earlier the same man appeared in court before Judge John Clapham to be sentenced on minor charges, including disorderly behavior, and was convicted and discharged (No jail time or any other penalty).
Full article here:
Judge Clapham asked Ratana’s partner, who was in the public gallery, to tell Ratana what they needed him to do so they could have a good life with their two-year-old son. Ratana reportedly cried as his partner looked at him and said she wanted him to change.
“I’m trying to get you to see we are better off in our life away from here. Whanganui is no good for you, you need to get away from here, from the people you know here. We have moved away to have a proper life with our son,” she said.
“You can do it, I know you can. Please do it for us.” Ratana wiped his eyes and said: “Yeah, I’ll do it.”
Judge Clapham told Ratana to get on with it and put his best foot forward. He then convicted and discharged him without penalty. “I want you to write to me in 12 months and tell me how wonderful your life is,” Judge Clapham said.
Another paedophile gets a pathetic sentence.
From the New Zealand Herald:
Family First NZ today described as “pathetic” the sentence imposed on a 21-year-old New Plymouth man who had sex with a 12-year-old girl.Yesterday, in New Plymouth District Court, Carl Brinton was given 12 months intensive supervision and ordered to pay $2000 towards the girl’s education after he earlier pleaded guilty to having sexual connection and indecently assaulting her, the Taranaki Daily News reported.
Brinton sexually assaulted the girl in his car before she, later in the night, got into his bed where they had sexual intercourse, crown prosecutor Sam Ellis said.Judge Allan Roberts said Brinton accepted responsibility for his misbehavior and the girl said in her victim impact report that the worst part for her was her parents finding out what happened.
Family First NZ said his punishment was “pathetic” and sent a dangerous message regarding the sexual exploitation of young people.”A punishment of a fine and some counseling has turned a very serious sexual abuse of a young girl into just an expensive episode,” Family First NZ national director Bob McCoskrie said.
This case is further proof that some of the judiciary are completely out of touch with the concerns of parents and the community, he said.”It’s time the law was toughened up and judges were put on notice to send a strong message showing the community’s disgust with the sexual abuse of young people.”
Brinton had fines totaling $5466 remitted and replaced by 275 hours community work.
Pedophile monks released after less than 2 years in prison.
Bernard Kevin McGrath
Church scandal: Pedophile monks released.
Two pedophile monks jailed for New Zealand’s most notorious Catholic sexual abuse scandal have been released on parole, each serving less than half their sentences in prison.
In 2006, Bernard Kevin McGrath was found guilty of 22 charges against nine victims aged 7 to 15 and was sentenced to five years in jail. McGrath was released on parole in February 2008, just less than two years into his five-year term. It is understood he is living in Christchurch and his ties with the Order have been cut.
In 2008, Rodger William Moloney was found guilty of seven charges of sex abuse against boys and also jailed. He was released in September 2009, 13 months into his 33-month sentence.
Moloney has been brought back into the fold of his Catholic Order, which will give him a home in Australia once his parole period is up. The Order of St John of God says it is the best way to care for and supervise him, but an independent member of the Order’s professional standards committee says he is being hidden and protected.
Rodger William Moloney
Moloney was head of Christchurch’s Marylands residential school for boys with learning difficulties, where more than 100 victims were systematically abused in the 1970s.
When a complainant first came forward in the 1970s regarding Bernard McGrath, St John of God shifted McGrath to Australia where he was put in charge of a boarding school and repeated his abuse. The Order at the time paid one of McGrath’s victims – a student with learning difficulties – $90,000 in compensation and for him to keep quiet.
Full article here.
80 year old man lured school boys into his house.
Donald MacDonald-Dalkeith
Man jailed for sex offenses committed at 80.
Donald MacDonald-Dalkeith, 81, committed indecencies against boys while he was 80. He was sentenced in Napier District Court yesterday after pleading guilty to 14 charges of unlawful sexual connection with a young person aged under 16.
The retired teacher and former parliamentary librarian is a childless bachelor with no previous convictions. MacDonald-Dalkeith had unlawful sexual connection with a boy aged between 12 and 14 between mid-2007 and late last year. He committed the same offense against a boy, 14, over seven months last year. The younger victim had Asperger’s syndrome.
MacDonald-Dalkeith lived near two schools and lured one of the boys into his house while he was on his way to or from school. This boy introduced him to a friend, who became the second victim.
He paid the boys between $5 and $20 cash or gave them a cigarette for sexual favours, telling them not to tell anyone as no-one would believe them because he was a respected community member and it would be their word against his.
The younger boy became increasingly confused and made two suicide attempts. The boys separately made numerous visits to MacDonald-Dalkeith’s house until September last year, when police searched his house after being told about the offending by the first boy.
MacDonald-Dalkeith, who had interim name suppression until yesterday, was sentenced to five years and four months’ prison.
Unbelievable! Yet another very light prison sentence for a sicko with a history of molesting little boys. It’s high time these crimes were taken seriously by the courts. Perverts like this POS are ruining lives, these children will suffer the on-going effects for years to come. Full article here.
Soccer club manager abused boys over 28 year period.
Grant Williams
Hutt man offended over 28 years.
A former Petone soccer club manager has been jailed for four years and eight months for indecently assaulting boys over a period of 28 years. Grant Williams, 70, of Maungaraki, pleaded guilty last month to 15 charges of indecently assaulting seven boys aged under 16 between 1962 and 1990.
In Wellington District Court Judge Denys Barry said Williams took innocent victims and scarred their lives forever. The court was told Williams had a previous conviction for indecent assault against a boy under the age of 16 from 1979.
4 years and 8 months jail for a crime spree that went on for 28 years? That is pathetic! He should have to spend at least one year in jail for each boy he abused.
Child killer denied parole.
Paul Dally
Karla Cardno’s killer denied parole.
The man who kidnapped, tortured and brutally murdered Lower Hutt teen Karla Cardno has been declined parole. Paul Joseph Dally, has already served 20 years of a life prison sentence, but is considered too dangerous to be released.
Quoting a psychological assessment, the Parole Board described him as showing a “high degree of relationship to serious and violent recidivism”.
“In the final analysis I am not entirely confident that the underlying motives for Mr Dally’s offending have been laid bare, and I consider that his current dismissal of his offense as ‘ancient history’ coupled with the assertion that he has been convicted of murder, not a sexual offense, extremely problematic.”
Karla Cardno
In 1989 Dally kidnapped Karla as she cycled to her Lower Hutt home. He then raped and tortured her in his nearby home, watching from the window as her frantic family searched outside. Later he drove to the Pencarrow Coast, near Eastbourne, where he smashed her skull with a piece of driftwood and buried her face down, still alive and naked, and with her hands bound.
Man used his children as sexual playthings.
Sex offender dad jailed 19 years.
A father who spent years using his three small children as “sexual playthings” shook his head as he began the 19-year prison term imposed in the Christchurch District Court today. he man, a 37-year-old freight worker, continues to deny all the charges even after the jury found him guilty of 12 offenses at the end of a seven-day trial.
Judge Jane Farish told him she had never seen such serious victim impact statements in 23 years of work as a prosecutor and judge. She suppressed the details of the health effects upon the two girls and a boy from offending that began in 2001 and only stopped in 2008 when one of the girls disclosed what had been happening.
The man was found guilty of three charges of indecent assault on girls under 12, four of doing an indecent act on the children, one of indecent assault on his son, and charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, and rape. All of the children were under 12 during most of the offending, and all of the charges were representative, meaning the offending occurred more than once. They gave evidence at trial over a closed circuit television link from another part of the Court.
Crown prosecutor Claire Boshier listed 10 aggravating factors indicating the sentencing range should be near the maximum sentence of 20 years. The factors included the breach of trust, the threats to the victims, the physical pain imposed on them, the harm caused, the age and number of the victims, and the fact that the offending occurred in their home where they should have felt safe.
The boy had been banished from the family without explanation because of his behavior. Miss Boshier said it was “breath-taking” hypocrisy that the man had said the son was sent away to protect his youngest daughter at a time when he was offending against her himself.
Full article here.
5 year old ‘sex offender’.
5-year-old sex offender on crime list.
From the NZ Herald:
A 5-year-old and two 6-year-old boys were apprehended by police for sexual assault last year.
They were among 716 children aged under nine who were reprimanded in the 2008/09 financial year for offences from unlawfully taking a bicycle and possession of cannabis to threatening to kill and assault with a weapon.
The 5-year-old and two 6-year-olds who committed sexual assaults were among 12 children who committed sexual offences. Police did not give details of the offending, citing privacy issues.
A 5- year old can’t be a sex offender, they are imitating what they have seen on TV, or what they have seen their parents or relatives doing. It is also likely they may also be repeating what has been done to them.
Full article here.
Child Abuse in New Zealand 
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