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Offender Databases Joseph Belcher

Joseph Ronald Belcher

Alias

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Offences

Kidnapped and indecently assaulted a ten year old girl in March 1995
Had 62 previous convictions including lurking, loitering and peering into a dwelling, an indecent act with intent to insult a male, obscenely exposing himself and being unlawfully in a building.

Victims

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Offender Affiliations

none known

Gang affiliations

none known

Age

Born 1955

Current Location

Under extended supervision

Parole/Release Dates

Sentenced to ten years in February 1996
Was paroled November 2001
A ten year extended supervision order was confirmed April 2005

Background
From the Dominion Post 20th September 2006
A HUMAN rights argument over whether extended supervision orders for sex offenders are inconsistent with the Bill of Rights is headed for the Court of Appeal. In a decision issued yesterday, the court said the extended supervision order law, which came into force in July 2004, amounted to a retrospective punishment, with the ability to impose significant restrictions, including detention. The attorney-general advised Parliament when the law change was being considered that it seemed an unjustified infringement of the Bill of Rights.

The Crown now has the chance to justify what would otherwise be a breach of the Bill of Rights, which says rights and freedoms of Kiwis should be restricted only by such reasonable legal limits as can be shown to be justified in a free and democratic society. The court said it expected to hear argument next year on issues including whether backdating of extended supervision orders was justified, and whether the court could or should make a declaration that the law was inconsistent with the Bill of Rights. Yesterday's decision, on the case of Joseph Ronald Belcher, was important in human rights terms, according to one of his lawyers Michael Bott.

He said the Bill of Rights followed the spirit of an international convention on civil and political rights to which New Zealand was a party. A declaration of inconsistency with the Bill of Rights might also mean inconsistency with the international covenant, Mr Bott said. It would be a tool for challenging the law, forcing the Government to reassess and report to Parliament on the need for it, he said. Belcher, 51, was placed under a 10-year supervision order in April last year. He had been released from a 10-year sentence for kidnapping and indecently assaulting a 10-year-old girl in November 2001 and fell within time limits for an application for an extended supervision order.

The orders were aimed at protecting the community from people who posed a risk of committing sexual offences against young people. Since his release, Belcher has been convicted of theft, fraud, and growing and possessing cannabis, but has not been convicted of any sex offences. His lawyers challenged the way the risk of him reoffending was assessed. Under one test, he was one of the three most likely to reoffend who had been tested in New Zealand at that time. The Court of Appeal said predicting the risk of reoffending had many problems but the evidence about Belcher "well and truly" met the legal test for imposing an extended supervision order.

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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

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