Mark Ron: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers  
Mark Ron: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers  
[Volume:615;Page:11014] 
11.  
RON MARK (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Corrections 
: Was Kevin Moana Jarden described as a predatory paedophile on home detention at the time that he raped sodomised and sexually molested three girls one of whom lived in the home in which he was placed? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 Yes. After serving time in prison for charges relating to burglary and stealing a bike he was released on home detention for 2 months by the district prisons board in 1999. This offender did not have a background of offending against young children prior to his most recent convictions. 
Ron Mark 
: Does it concern the Minister that this man who has been described as a predatory paedophile and a serial offender was deemed by the Parole Board to be suitable for placement on home detention in a home with children; if he does will the Minister be seeking to have that Parole Board held accountable for the subsequent attacks on these other three little girls? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: The events are appalling—there is absolutely no question about that. However this offender has been described as a predator and a paedophile; he is certainly a serial offender—there is no question about that—but the reality is that apart from an association with a girl who was 15 at the time he had no other convictions relating to anyone under the age of 16 years. I understand now that this particular case is back before the court. 
Martin Gallagher 
: What has the Government done to ensure that people who agree to take home detention offenders into their residences are fully aware of the offenders’ offending background? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Although in this case the probation officer did tell the resident about the offending history the Government determined that the legislation could be made clearer on this point. A specific clause was added into the Parole Act 2002 requiring probation officers to ensure that every relevant occupant of the residence where it is proposed the offender be detained is aware of the nature of the offender’s past and current offending. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Noting those changes in the Sentencing Act what is the Government doing to prevent a recurrence of the situation where a man who went to jail for beating his wife so badly that he had to give her CPR to keep her alive was able to serve out part of his sentence on home detention with the very woman he had originally bashed only to bash her within weeks of his release on home detention? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Of course that also is appalling. At the end of sentences obviously criminals are released back into the community. In some cases instead of serving their full time they are released to home detention. What that member will realise given that his Government introduced home detention is that the reoffending rates of those who were on home detention are much better than those of people who served their full sentence in prison. 
Ron Mark 
: Is the Minister not aware that the details show that this person’s first offence was committed against a girl who was younger than 15 and that indeed the sponsor was not given the full details of his offending; and does the Minister not agree that when the Department of Corrections fails the public so badly that it lets a man with 80 criminal convictions carried out over a 40-year period against a multitude of victims go on home detention it and the State should be held accountable to the victims and their families? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: There are about four questions there; I will try to answer a couple of them. Firstly I was not aware that the girl was under 15; I had been advised that she was 15. [ 
Interruption 
] I see that the member thinks that is a minor detail. Secondly I was told that the people living at the place to which the offender was to go had been advised of his conviction history. The third point is that it is not the department’s role to recommend home detention; it was a decision made by the prisons board and that board should be accountable for the decision.