Child rapist tries to get supervision order lifted
A child rapist who is now a transgender woman has gone to the Supreme Court to try and have an extended supervision order lifted, arguing her predilection is now “latent and might only emerge in certain circumstances”.
Pierre John Parsons, now known as PJ, was convicted of abducting a 12-year-old girl from a Dunedin sports stadium bathroom and raping her in 1995.
Parsons, then 18 years old, tied a rope around the girl’s neck, causing her to lose consciousness, and dragged her into another room where he stripped and raped her.
Parsons was jailed for 11 years and since then has either been in prison, on parole, or under an extended supervision order (ESO), which allows probation officers to monitor and manage someone considered a high risk for up to 10 years at a time.
In 2017, High Court Justice Gerald Nation said that stress and frustration associated with “gender issues” had been a factor in Parson’s offending.
Parsons had taken the girl’s clothing to wear for “cross-dressing purposes” in the 1995 attack and subsequently expressed a desire to live as a woman.
A Supreme Court decision just issued says that Parsons is now transgender. It refers to Parsons by the female pronouns she and her. Other court documents say she has been taking hormone treatments.
There will many views on ‘PJ’.
Lots of those opinions will be toxic hatred that poisons the debate and brings no clarity.
There will be anger thrown at them for being Trans, there will be anger they were deadnamed, there will be mocking, there will be little in the way of actual insight.
I have zero interest in entertaining any of that. I raise the case because there is a truth in this sad story that is where our efforts and debate should focus on.
It is the use of the ESO…
The Parole Act provides that an ESO can be applied when an offender “displays an intense drive, desire or urge to commit a sexual offence”.
Parsons argued that her predilection was now “latent and might only emerge in certain circumstances”, and this was incompatible with an intense drive to offend being displayed.
The Court of Appeal rejected that argument and the Supreme Court said it was not in the interests of justice to give Parsons leave to take the matter further.
The Court of Appeal agreed with the High Court that Parsons still posed a high risk of committing a sexual offence, and her right to liberty “does not outweigh the community protection interest”, notwithstanding the length of the ESO orders.
The Supreme Court said Parson’s appeal sought to give the language of the law an “overly narrow meaning” which was not consistent with what Parliament had probably intended – that an ESO be imposed “where the risk-related intense drive, desire or urge is able, on the evidence, to be discerned in the offender”.
…the fact that the ESOs are so extensibly used in NZ tells us something about the nature of incarceration and the lack of rehabilitation.
This individual served very lengthy prison sentences and despite that, was considered so dangerous that extension orders that went far beyond the punishment term were applied.
What is that telling us about the time inside prison?
Look if you want lengthy prison sentences for appalling crimes, fine, I’m not disagreeing, but surely the time inside prison should be spent pouring rehabilitation into the individual so that ESOs aren’t required?
If a person is being released who is still a danger, then they shouldn’t be released!
How can long lags inside prison occur with very little in the way of ongoing therapy?
This story isn’t about the sad attempt to challenge the ESO. It isn’t about them being Trans, and it isn’t about deadnaming. It’s about a broken prison system that releases people more damaged than when they went in.
Our focus has to be on the failure of the prison system, not the failures of the individuals.
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This one has a serious screw loose which the most liberal prison reform might not be able to assist with.
The trans new women with cocks and balls, whatever others think of them, should be able to go about their lives free from assault, harassment or other prejudice in employment etc. but…they need to respect non trans rights in return-like not bloody raping teens.
Its simple Prisons are run privately and for them they are essentially a hotels and what does a business like this want other than full rooms at all time. It is not in the best interest to rehabilitate at all. Worst decision ever made in New Zealand was privatisation the prisons.
If, as some “ experts” now maintain, transgender persons are narcissists, no therapy or rehabilitation is likely to work. Prison is the best place for bastards like this, and preferably not a women’s prison, but chop his bits off anyway, she won’t be needing them again.
Looks like the early comments all want punishment and not rehabilitation. I thought that you presented a balanced view that would keep us safer than we are now while making sure that any penalty was appropriate to the risk. There is only one guaranteed way to transform the mind and is not something that can be forced on people so we need suitable rules that can be flexible when required.
Bonnie You bet I want this monster punished. But it is not an “ either / or “ situation.
Being punished does not mean that criminals shouldn’t also be rehabilitated, if it is possible. In this case, it may not be, and nor may it be appropriate to be lenient or flexible to any male who rapes a 12 year old child. That girl may never recover.
Being in prison is the punishment, I do not see any evidence that torture like conditions for the prisoners make any of us safer.
I was speaking generally and of course I understand that any man who rapes a 12 year old girl deserves to be locked up possibly for ever but that doesn’t remove the need for a prison system that aims to release people in a safer state than when they were imprisoned.
Agree with the above, regarding all of the need for rehab, plus monitoring on release, and doing the time, and the prosecution in the first place, and the trans aspect is of little relevance to all these. Presumably though PJ was not employed by the state sector in 1995, and the girl was not in care, because if that was the case, then the police would likely have turned a blind eye to it, like they have to so many many many others. I think the estimate of those abused in state care, was around 250,000, but I may have missread it.
After all these damaged people, damaged by our country, in our country, and ignored by our country for so long, by the very law enorcement supposed to protect them, who are now grown adults, had decided to take the law into their own hands, and deal justice to their abusers, then it’s very surprising that the murder rate is not far higher than it is.
It might make a good statistical exercise, to estimate the number of murders that happen, after Police fail to act on matters, forcing ordinary citizens to then take the law into their own hands. In other words, what percentage of the murder rate is actually caused by Police? It’s the elephant in the room, and the solution is a Police internal affairs division, to Police the Police, and/or police Crown Law. As a recent example, Police who effectively framed Allan Hall, who should have seen that he was not the perpetrator, because independent eyes with sufficient commonsence would have been able to see it, and maybe it was attributable to confirmation bias or prejudice or whatever, simply should not have remained Police.
Kimber That’s all very well, but this country has a solicitor general, Una Jagose, who I think said that Maori shouldn’t be charged at all because they are victims of colonialism, although she seems to be back tracking or trying to circumvent that like mad now. Una’s said she wasn’t the brightest sort of lesbian law student, and IMO, that’s pretty obvious, and with Irish and Indian parentage she may regard herself as an expert on Brit colonialism and IMO John Key was a complete and utter idiot if he appointed her as some sort of diversity signal, which isn’t the best basis for such an important legal office.
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