Rapist wins case against ‘extreme’ restrictions
A double rapist considered a high risk of reoffending has won an appeal against the public protection order he has been living under since his prison sentence ended.
Mark David Chisnall was sentenced in Whanganui in 2006 to eight years’ jail, and then in 2009 an earlier crime caught up with him and he was sentenced in New Plymouth to another three years.
When his sentence was about to end in 2016 the Department of
Corrections asked for a monitoring order to be made, either a public protection order or a less restrictive extended supervision order with intensive monitoring for the first year.
Both control where the person can live and restricts their freedom of movement.
A public protection order, which is open-ended, was imposed on Chisnall. Under the order the person lives on prison grounds and is subject to a range of rules, including being accompanied if they go outside the prison wire.
Under an extended supervision order the person lives at an approved address and if they are intensively monitored they are accompanied and monitored for up to 24 hours a day.
A Court of Appeal decision issued on Friday said a public protection order meant extreme deprivation of personal liberty and autonomy. The evidence suggested a modified regime might manage Chisnall’s personal risk, the Court of Appeal said.
It cancelled the public protection order and said an intensively monitored extended supervision order was appropriate.
The court said it could not impose the order directly so it sent the case back to be considered in the High Court, with an interim order filling the gap in the meantime.
Chisnall said he would consent to being intensively monitored for the first year of extended supervision. He accepted he presented a high risk, but not a very high imminent risk, of serious sexual offending.
Chisnall was 14 when he committed his first sexual offence at a Taranaki park in 2001 – one of four at the same park between then and 2005. Two of his victims were children between 7 and 9 years old, while the other two were women.
He hit one woman over the head with a piece of wood and violently raped another.
In separate proceedings involving Chisnall, the Court of Appeal decided both types of order were inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act because they amounted to punishing an offender twice for the same crimes. More evidence was needed to justify making the orders, the court said.
The Supreme Court is due to hear an appeal in October against the Bill of Rights decision.
While Chisnall’s case has been before the courts he has been living at Matawhāiti, a residence for men on public protect orders, in the grounds of Christchurch Men’s Prison. He could not leave unless staff accompanied him.
The court had fresh evidence about how Chisnall was doing at Matawhāiti. Generally he was compliant but twice displayed anger in ‘‘relatively minor incidents’’. He used a calming technique and walked away, although he punched a concrete wall in one incident and an external heat pump in the other – both times causing himself minor injuries.
Since March 2021 he had 100 outings outside the wire with two minders.