Mark Ron: General Debate 
Mark Ron: General Debate 
[Volume:624;Page:19244] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 Today I wish to raise in the House once again the question of John Albert Thomas Clarke. 
Jill Pettis 
: Oh! 
RON MARK 
: There goes the chief Government whip a female who thinks that revelations about a man who raped a 15-year-old schoolgirl are boring. I tell that member that the subsequent molestation of three more women by that man since he was placed on home detention and on parole is not a boring matter to those victims. This Government Jill Pettis and Trevor Mallard who is trying to interject must take responsibility and be accountable for the situation. Last week I told the House that this man had been sentenced to a total of 44 years in jail. 
Jill Pettis 
: You’re obsessed! 
RON MARK 
: I want it on the record that Jill Pettis is laughing about this man. That is why these sorts of people—people like Mr Jarden who raped two schoolgirls—are out on our streets or released into home detention. I ask the member whether that is something else to laugh about. Is that a joke too? She should try telling that to the parents of those girls. 
This question has to be asked: who put Mr Clarke on home detention? How could that possibly happen? How can the Minister of Corrections say that Mr Clarke completed his home detention successfully when there are now three new victims who have said that Mr Clarke was smoking marijuana drinking and was alone with children consorting and associating with them—thereby breaching the three conditions that were part of his release? This Government is becoming legendary for being blind to deaf to and totally disinterested in the pleas of victims. 
I ask Jill Pettis—on behalf of a young mother who is now on the run who is somewhere in New Zealand hopping from plane to plane and from home to home fearful that this man Mr Clarke will be released back into the community because that is what she has been told—why the police will not be charging him with threatening to kill? The Department of Corrections said that he had completed his home detention successfully. Rubbish! He was alone with children whereas a specific condition of his home detention was that he was not allowed to be alone with children. And Jill Pettis a member of the Government laughs. Everyone in the gallery saw her laugh. It is a joke to her. 
This young mother is still on the run. Mr Clarke has threatened her child and sends her text messages boasting to her and to his other victims—this same man who supposedly was reformed—what he did when he raped the 15-year-old girl he kidnapped. He has even gone on to say that the best way to get at people is to get their children and he boasted that the 15-year-old schoolgirl he raped was a detective’s daughter. Is that true? Is that fact? Do we now have this Government letting out on home detention people who try to pervert the course of justice by attacking the children of detectives who are investigating them? Is that the truth? If it is it is a sad indictment on this pathetic Government—a Government that purports to care about children purports to care about solo mothers and purports to care about victims. Yet right now this very minute a young woman with two children is on the run because she fears for her life and for the life of her 13-year-old son who has been threatened by Mr Clarke. 
Mr Clarke is up before the Parole Board today. The sad tragedy is that it is the same Parole Board that let him out. So what do we have to ask it? If the board thought it was such a smart idea to let this remorseless sexual offender out on to our streets what will it do today? I have asked the Minister of Corrections but he does not have answers. So far all the answers he has given me have been wrong. He tried to tell me that I was wrong and that this man was not in a social services home on home detention being cared for by a 76-year-old woman. The Minister was wrong. The man was there. Why did the Department of Corrections not tell that woman and all the other vulnerable women who were going into that house and subsequently preyed on by Mr Clarke about Mr Clarke’s past? He was and still is a remorseless predatory high-risk sexual offender who has now added three more scalps to his belt. And I do not hear a peep out of this Government because it thinks it is doing wonderfully well.