escalating violence in our community Become a member of the Sensible Sentencing Trust

Mouseover links for full page descriptions

Offender Databases Gary Isherwood

Gary Maui Isherwood

Alias

.

Offences

Rape and abduction of an 18 year old New Brighton, Christchurch woman in July 2003
Unlawful sexual intercourse with and prostitution of a 14 year old girl in Christchurch in 1999 after getting her hooked on morphine.

Victims

.

Offender Affiliations

Andrew Hartley
Michael Holdem

Gang affiliations

Skinheads, also Road Knights (although they have since disassociated themselves with him out of disgust)

Age

Born 1978

Current Location

Prison

Parole/Release Dates

Sentenced to preventive detention with a minimum parole period of ten years in April 2004
Unsuccessfully appealed the conviction in March 2005

Background
NZ Herald story here
Committed this offence only weeks after being released on parole on the sentence for his 1999 offence detailed here
From that story
The charge faced by Wilson arose from two men, Gary Isherwood and Michael Holdem, admitting that they had deliberately turned the schoolgirl into a drug addict. They had then forced the schoolgirl into a life of prostitution so she could pay them for her twice-a-day morphine injection. Isherwood and Holdem are now both serving eight-year prison sentences.

From Christchurch Press story 16th March 2005
Two men who injected a Christchurch teenager with drugs against her will and brutally gang- raped her have lost an appeal against their convictions. A Christchurch jury last April found Gary Maui Isherwood and Andrew Clive Hartley guilty of kidnapping, administering Ritalin and methadone, four charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and three charges of rape.

Isherwood, 26, was said to be "a menace to women", and was given a sentence of preventive detention and will serve at least 10 years. He committed the offences just three weeks after his release from an eight-year sentence imposed in 1999 for plying a 14-year-old schoolgirl with drugs and getting her to work as a prostitute to pay for them once addicted. Hartley, 30, must serve at least half of an 11-year term.

Isherwood and Hartley appealed against their convictions last August. Three Court of Appeal judges rejected submissions made by the pair's lawyer, Stan Barker, that the jury in the trial was not properly directed on the law. He said the jury should have been told the woman, a pretty 18- year-old described during the trial as "clearly vulnerable", could have consented to sex even though she was intoxicated. But Justices McGrath, Glazebrook and O'Regan ruled it was up to the jury to decide whether consent was given, and not a matter of law to be directed by the trial judge.

The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the jury she felt like she had "no control whatsoever" after being forcibly injected with drugs after a night out. She had agreed to go to a motel with Isherwood and Hartley "to chill out", making it clear she did not want to have sex, but found herself blacking out. The drugs Ritalin and methadone were found in her blood. After both men raped the teenager and forced her to perform sex acts, Isherwood told her he would take her to parlours to make money in the sex industry.

---

Corrections and Additional Information
We endeavour to make this database as accurate as possible, but we are at the mercy of whatever information we can find in various online and offline archives. We rely on the public - that is, people like you - to fill in the gaps that we cannot. If you wish to submit additional information or a correction to this file CLICK HERE . Privacy: Trust policy is that all sources are treated as strictly confidential unless we are explicitly told otherwise. If you wish to see a file removed from this database certain conditions must be met by the offender set out HERE Note that this does NOT apply for those that are the primary offender in a murder, rape, or any sexual offending involving minors. We do not enter into correspondence regarding the guilt/innocence of offenders. Such correspondence is not responded to, especially if the offender concerned has a number of prior convictions

Back to Top