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Offender Databases Rex Turpin

Rex Leslie Turpin

Alias

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Offences

Indecent assaults on a number of boys aged 10-12 from 1978 to 1987 in the Timaru region
Eight charges in all although it appears some of these were representional of larger scale offending

Victims

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Offender Affiliations

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Gang affiliations

none known

Age

Born 1942

Current Location

At large in Glenavy, Canterbury

Parole/Release Dates

Sentenced to two years six months in December 1999

Background
From Timaru Herald. 9th December, 1999
A former Waimate school groundsman was yesterday sentenced to two- and-a-half years'imprisonment when he appeared in the Timaru District Court on indecency charges. Rex Leslie Turpin, 57, formerly of Glenavy, pleaded guilty in October to eight charges involving male complainants between 1978 and 1987.

The charges included indecently assaulting a boy aged 10-12, indecently assaulting a boy under-12 (three), indecent assault (three), and inducing a boy to do an indecentact upon him. The summary of facts told of the indecencies occurring mostly at the accused's property. One victim alleged the offences had occurred at least 20 times in two years.

Judge Edward Ryan said the charges represented a pattern of offending over a numbe of years. It was clear that when youngsters had legitimate interests in Turpin'sactivities he abused their trust. For some years Turpin had been employed at a school where he apparently resisted allowing any predatory instincts to develop, the judge said. But after so many years such behaviour should still be renounced and condemned, he said.

References were balanced by sad victim impact statements which made the point that intrusive sexual offending could manifest ill effects years after the incidents. Counsel Mike Radford said Turpin always acknowledged his guilt, but disputed some details of the allegations. He accepted imprisonment was inevitable He took issue with the suggestion offending continued after 1983. The offending stopped not because of any investigation, it simply stopped, Mr Radford said.

In 1993 Turpin undertook the Stop programme in Christchurch, though had not offended for a significant length of time before that. He had worked as a school caretaker since 1983 and been exposed to significant contactwith young people. There would have been plenty of opportunity, but Turpin had been careful not to get himself into a situation where he offended again. Crown prosecutor Tim Jackson said Turpin had a profound and devastating effect on his victims, and the nature of the offending was almost as important as the act.

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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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