Crown seeks preventive detention for wife killer

The Crown is seeking preventive detention for a sex offender who has already served a life sentence for murdering his wife.

Anthony Weke Tuimata was known as Anthony Weke in 1999 when he received a final warning from Justice Willie Young in the High Court in Christchurch that any further sexual offending could result in an open-ended jail sentence.

On that occasion he had admitted breaking into a 17-year-old woman's sleep-out, and attempting to sexually violate her. He was jailed for six years.

He was sentenced to life in Wellington in 1988 for the murder of his wife, serving just over 10 years in prison. He remains a life parolee.

Now the 53-year-old has pleaded guilty to a charge of doing an indecent act with an under-age girl.

Judge Colin Doherty in Christchurch District Court remanded him for sentence after crown prosecutor Tim Mackenzie filed an application for preventive detention to be considered.

He said there was certainly a case for the sentence to be considered and for the necessary reports by two health assessors to be prepared.

He said Tuimata's pre-sentence report disclosed a serious aggravating factor that there would have been possible communication of a disease if the sex offence had been completed.

There was also a report that Tuimata was assessed as a high risk of reoffending.

Defence counsel Richard Peters said he was concerned that because Tuimata was already a life parolee, he wondered what preventive detention would "add to the mix".

Judge Doherty said it was a case where preventive detention ought to be considered, and declined jurisdiction.

Tuimata was further remanded in custody for sentence in the High Court on October 7. By then, reports usually by a psychologist and psychiatrist will have been completed.

 

Add a Comment