Sex offender jailed for babysitting
A sex offender out of prison on release conditions was found to have babysat a 5-year-old girl – after the girl’s mother asked him for a favour.
Steven Kendall had been jailed in November 2017 for a year for travelling to meet a young person and exposing her to indecent material.
He was released from jail in May this year and given a series of conditions, including that he not have contact with any young person.
In August, police found he had babysat a 5-year-old girl at the instigation of her mother who was attending a work function.
Wellington District Court judge Bill Hastings said yesterday that screenshots of his phone proved it was the mother who made contact.
The pair had known each other for a month via Facebook and had never met in person when she asked for the favour. She did not know his past.
During the evening, Kendall let the girl watch things on his phone, they played games, he fed her and let her talk to her mother, who then picked her up the next morning.
Kendall maintained nothing untoward had happened.
He had pleaded guilty to Corrections charges of failing to report and breaching a condition not to associate with a person under 16.
‘‘You ought to have said no because you knew your special release conditions,’’ the judge told him.
Kendall had also failed to report to probation, which was a breach of his conditions.
The judge jailed him for six months and three weeks and imposed conditions on his release – including that he have no internet capable device or have contact with a person under 16.
Kendall’s lawyer, Clare Stanley, said she was dubious herself when Kendall said the mother made the first contact and asked him to babysit.
In his last offending, Kendall had traded messages on Facebook with what he thought was a 13-year-old girl and lured her to a park with the intent to have sex.
Instead he was met by the child exploitation officer he had been talking to online.