Repeat sex offender avoids an indefinite prison term

A repeat sex offender has avoided an indefinite jail term due in part to the impact it would have on his mental health.

Damon Nicholas Rowe, who lives with paranoid schizophrenia, has a criminal history of committing indecent assaults on women, and doing indecent acts in public.

His latest offending happened in New Plymouth in July 2021, when he indecently assaulted a woman he did not know on the street. He grabbed her breast and bottom and kissed her before he exposed his genitals in public for about five minutes.

At the time, Rowe was drunk and high on synthetic drugs, the High Court at New Plymouth heard on Friday.

Due to an assessment of Rowe’s high risk of sexual reoffending, Crown prosecutor Cherie Clarke sought a sentence of preventive detention for the 45-year-old.

Such a move is only made in the most serious cases, where an offender is believed to pose a significant and ongoing risk to the public.

However, Clarke accepted preventive detention was an unlikely outcome.

She said sentencing Rowe was a ‘‘difficult’’ exercise as it was not about punishment, but protecting the community from him.

Justice Rebecca Ellis agreed there were limited sentencing options for Rowe, as it was clear from the reports provided to the court that jail was not the right place.

‘‘That’s going to make it worse, not better.’’

Justice Ellis said while Rowe was eligible for preventive detention, it would have been ‘‘unjustifiably punitive’’ to keep him in prison for an indeterminate period due to the negative impact on his mental health.

She added that while there was a clear risk of reoffending, the nature of his crimes to date were ‘‘low level’’ and did not appear to be increasing in seriousness.

However, the judge said it was important for Rowe to understand how his actions impacted on the people he harmed.

The indecent assault victim had been ‘‘really frightened’’ by Rowe, who had 10 previous sexrelated convictions in the past 25 years.

Rowe, who had been on remand for 15 months, repeatedly said from the dock he was sorry for what he did.

Justice Ellis sentenced Rowe to 24 months’ jail, but due to time served, he will be released from prison in the coming days.

He will then have to abide by strict release conditions which include living at his sister’s address in Whakatāne, wearing a GPS anklet to keep track of his whereabouts, and taking medication as directed by a medical professional.

The court heard how Corrections will likely apply for an extended supervision order for Rowe, which will allow long-term monitoring of the defendant.

At the time of his guilty pleas for the 2021 offending, Rowe was already on his second strike, so faced having to serve the full seven-year maximum penalty for the July 2021 indecent assault, unless the sentencing judge exercised discretion not to impose this.

Justice Ellis said this option would have been ‘‘grossly disproportionate’’ to the offending, and in any event was a moot point due to the recent repeal of the Three Strikes law.