Murderer and rapist denied bail
A man who raped and murdered a 15-year-old South Otago schoolgirl almost 30 years ago admitted he still had sexually inappropriate thoughts about women as he was denied parole.
Paul David Bailey appeared before the Parole Board at Christchurch Men’s Prison on Wednesday.
The 57-year-old was jailed for life with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years after admitting raping and killing Owaka teenager Kylie Smith in November 1991.
Asked during the hearing whether he still experienced sexually deviant thoughts, Bailey said he did ‘‘occasionally’’, and that they could be triggered by a woman ‘‘that looks very good’’, or an image on television – but was able to block the thoughts using distraction techniques.
He was denied parole and will not be seen again until March 2023, by which time he will have served almost
32 years in prison for Kylie’s murder.
Kylie’s mother Dawn Smith said she was delighted Bailey would remain in prison for at least two more years and said he should never be set free. ‘‘We knew it wasn’t going to be five years, but it’s better than one,’’ she told Stuff.
Bailey appeared nervous ahead of the hearing.
When told that victims felt he still had not shown any remorse and believed he still posed a high risk to society, he was at a loss to explain his actions.
‘‘To be honest I don’t really know what to say. I would like to express some remorse for my actions but wouldn’t know where to begin . . . The things I’ve done are irreversible and there is just no way I can fix it at all.’’
The board was also concerned Bailey had not addressed his violent tendencies.
Bailey did not attend his last parole hearing in 2016, telling the board by writing he could not ‘‘be bothered’’ – a sentiment he said he now regretted.
Smith was raped and murdered on November 1, 1991 after Bailey forced her off her horse and into a car at gunpoint not far from her home.
Her body was found the following day in dense scrub after rescuers, including many of Owaka’s residents, searched through the night to find her.
Bailey had moved from Central Otago, where he was on bail for a previous attempted rape, to Port Molyneux near Owaka just two weeks before and had worked alongside Kylie’s father, Bevan, on a drainage job the day before.
He was arrested, and was sentenced to life imprisonment after pleading guilty. That was followed by a three-anda-half-year sentence for the attempted rape of a young Central Otago women in 1991 and another three years for the rape of a girl aged between 12 and 16.