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Offender Databases Robert Rutherford

Robert Michael Rutherford

Alias

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Offences

Rape (x2), attempted rape (x3) and an indecent act upon two Lower Hutt girls aged five and eight in 1986 for five months in 1986
Other previous offending

Victims

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Offender Affiliations

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Gang affiliations

none known

Age

Born 1955

Current Location

unknown

Parole/Release Dates

Sentenced to nine years in June 1996

Background
From the Evening Post 22nd June 1996
A High Court judge has urged that a man he sentenced to nine years jail for sexual offending spend his sentence in a secure mental hospital. Robert Michael Rutherford, 41, unemployed, had been found guilty by jury on six charges, two of sexual violation by rape, one of attempted rape, two of attempted sexual violation by rape and one of inducing a girl to do an indecent act. The offences took place in the first five months of 1986.

Justice McGechan, in the High Court in Wellington, sentenced Rutherford to nine years for sexual violation by rape, two years for attempted rape and attempted sexual violation by rape and one year for inducing a girl to do an indecent act. All the jail terms were to be concurrent. The judge said consideration should be given to Rutherford being transferred at an early point in his sentence to a secure mental hospital.

Rutherford had been living with members of his extended family when the offences happened. The two girls involved were aged eight and five. Defence counsel Fuimaono Tuiasau said Rutherford had been in mental hospitals or prisons since he was 14, spending about only 12 months of that time in the community. He had mild mental retardation and had had a total of 23 different kinds of anti-psychotic medication, and even electric convulsive therapy. He was institutionalised and depended on being told what to do.

Mr Tuiasau recommended that the judge commit Rutherford to a mental hospital and make him a restricted patient rather than give him a finite term of imprisonment, "because there is a 100 percent chance of him reoffending again within hours, not days, of his release from prison as has happened before". Crown prosecutor Chris Hodson said everything that could be done for Rutherford had already been tried in hospitals. A term of imprisonment was required in the interests of the community.

From the Evening Post 5th June 1996
A psychiatric patient raped and sexually assaulted two young girls after he was released from hospital, a jury in the High Court at Wellington heard yesterday. Robert Michael Rutherford, 41, has denied eight charges. They are that in the first five months of 1986 he indecently assaulted an eight-year-old girl, induced an eight-year-old girl to do an indecent act on him, induced a girl under five to do an indecent act on him, two charges of attempted rape, two charges of sexually violating a girl by rape and induced a girl aged between five years old and five years and three months to do an indecent act.

Crown prosecutor Chris Hodson said that in 1986 Rutherford had gone to live with members of his extended family in Lower Hutt. Two young girls also lived there. Mr Hodson said Rutherford had been released to live in the community after being a patient at Lake Alice psychiatric hospital.

He said Rutherford had began by touching the genitals of the girls and then sexually violated one. The first complainant said Rutherford had at first just touched her and told her he loved her. "Then he would rub my knees, chest and vagina area. That was when I started getting scared," she said. She said Rutherford raped her. He also made her perform oral sex on him. She was eight at the time.

She said after they moved to Dunedin in early 1986 he continued to rape her. The second complainant said Rutherford used to make her rub his genitals and tried to have sex with her but could not. She was five years old at the time. Both complainants told their mother last year what had happened. She called the police.

The mother said she was told the defendant was all right to be taken out of hospital. "They said that that sort of behaviour was non-existent with the medication he was on," she said. While in Dunedin, Rutherford stopped taking his medication. He left after an argument and was later admitted to hospital. Justice McGechan is hearing the case.

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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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