Offenders 'Can Look After Kids'
by Kelly Andrew
Originally published in The Press, October 18, 2002
Child Youth and Family (CYF) policy allows it to place children into the care of known child-sex offenders.
But it says it would only place a child with a sex offender if it had "expert advice" the person had been effectively rehabilitated and posed no danger.
CYF has been under fire for its handling of custody cases involving Jules Mikus, who was last week found guilty of raping and murdering Napier schoolgirl Teresa Cormack.
It has admitted allowing children to remain in his care even though he was known to have convictions for sexual offending. An internal investigation into the case is now under way.
CYF spokesman Stephen Ward said yesterday that in "almost all cases" children would not be placed in a home where a convicted child sex offender had unsupervised access to them. But this was not a blanket rule and if the department had expert opinion from a psychologist or psychiatrist that the person involved had been effectively rehabilitated and the child's safety was assured, then the placement could go ahead.
Earlier this week Act MP Deborah Coddington claimed in Parliament that the department planned to award custody of two children, aged 10 and six, to a man convicted in 1991 of attempting to have sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old girl.
Social Services Minister Steve Maharey yesterday said Ms Coddington's accusation was misleading and an abuse of parliamentary privilege. The children were being looked after by department caregivers, and no further placement that put them at risk would be made.
Ms Coddington yesterday told The Press that sex offenders should be given custody of children who are not their own only under exceptional circumstances. At present CYF was not being "hard enough".
"These are not isolated incidents. The same applies when the children have been physically abused, usually by the mother's partner. I think they (CYF social workers) just want to sign off on these cases."
Ms Coddington has threatened to reveal the identities of social workers who put children at risk.
She later did a u-turn after being asked whether she wanted CYF to take New Zealand First MP Ron Mark's children from him. Mr Mark was convicted as an 18-year-old in 1972 of having sex with a 15 year-old girl. He was dating the girl, but "naively" thought she was his age.
Ms Coddington said she had been unaware of Mr Mark's conviction and was not suggesting CYF take his children away. "I like Ron he's a sweetie. I certainly wouldn't mind him looking after my kids."
Experts told The Press that sex abusers remained a danger to children, even after receiving treatment.
The clinical director of Christchurch's STOP Trust, Don Mortensen, said sex offenders should not be placed in situations where they had unsupervised access to children, irrespective of efforts to rehabilitate them.
"The general view of professionals would be to strongly recommend that children should not be placed in their care ever, and they should not work in a field where they are responsible for the care of young children."
He said treatment was not a cure, but a way of managing what was usually a life-long problem.
Clinical director of STOP's programme for adult sex offenders Sandra Simpson said the trust took a conservative approach when it was contacted by CYF about men who had completed the programme. Child safety was the top priority.
"It's important to say that risk assessment is not an exact science. There are certain situations, and probably they are the minority — where it would not be impossible for (sex offenders) to be able to live where there are children. But for them to have unsupervised access with children in the long term would need to be very, very carefully examined to ascertain whether that would be good for them or not."
