Predator jailed indefinitely
‘‘So I take it that makes me a rapist now.’’
Robert Allen Mair gave that frank assessment of his violent offending against a teenager he had just kidnapped, stuffed in the boot of a car, driven to the countryside and raped.
The 40-year-old may spend the rest of his life in prison for those crimes, with Justice Christine Grice sentencing him yesterday in the High Court at Palmerston North to preventive detention.
He must serve at least six years and seven months in jail, and can only be released if he proves he is not an undue risk to the community.
Mair has a history of offending against women, having been found guilty in 2003 of crimes against three different women, including kidnapping, sexual violation, assault and threatening to kill. One of those crimes included raping and assaulting a woman at a cemetery, after driving her there.
His latest offending occurred on November
27, while he was on home detention for assaulting a boy.
He cut off his monitoring anklet and went to the Pak ’n Save car park in Palmerston North, where he found a young woman alone in a car.
He got in the car, showed her a knife and told her to drive, wanting to follow his family, who were with police.
However, he left after the woman repeatedly yelled ‘‘no’’ and refused to drive.
He then went to The Plaza shopping mall’s car park and did the same thing to a second woman, this time saying he was not a rapist, he only wanted her car and would let her go.
They drove towards Massey University, with the woman trying to get the attention of a roadworks crew, before stopping on Tennent Drive. They changed seats and Mair stuffed her in the footwell and kept driving. She tried to jump from the moving car but Mair held her in. She was then put in the boot and driven to Rangitı¯kei.
He asked her if she would do anything to live, to which she said yes.
He made her perform a sex act in the car, before pulling over in a secluded area, raping her, and giving his assessment of his crimes.
They went to Whanganui, then back to Palmerston North, where Mair parked near a park and fled.
He admitted everything when arrested, and pleaded guilty as soon as possible. He also took police to where the offending happened.
In her recorded victim-impact statement, the woman said she felt the offending was written ‘‘all over me’’.
‘‘I feel self-conscious . . . and that people look at me and know what happened.
‘‘I feel like I need to tell everyone what happened to me, and put on a brave face to reassure I’m OK – but I’m not.
‘‘I didn’t want to be in my own body because of what happened.’’
She had since stopped working, with her parents having to pay her rent, and was scared of covered car parks.
Defence lawyer Esme Killeen argued against preventive detention, saying Mair had changed since his 2003 convictions.
He got away from gangs and drugs, engaged with counselling, got a job, and lived in a family setting for the first time in his life.
‘‘The key motivator for him is family,’’ Killeen said.
‘‘He doesn’t want this life for his own kids, and he wants a meaningful connection with them.’’
However, the judge said any sentence other than preventive detention was insufficient.
He completed the adult sexual offender treatment programme during his prison term for the 2003 convictions, even becoming a mentor on the programme, the judge said.
‘‘Past efforts to address your offending have failed.’’
An open-ended sentence would ensure Mair was properly treated before release from prison, the judge said.