The Parker sentencing

Former Pamapuria School deputy principal James Parker has been sentenced to preventive detention; Stuff reports:

One of New Zealand's most prolific paedophiles has been sentenced to preventive detention with a minimum term of imprisonment of seven years.
James Parker, the former deputy principal of Pamapuria School, east of Kaitaia, has appeared in the High Court in Whangarei this morning to be sentenced after earlier pleading guilty to 74 sexual offences against 20 boys over 13 years.
All his victims were aged under 16 years old at the time.
Addressing Parker, Justice Paul Heath said: "When you were listening to the [victim impact] statements you did not even have the courtesy to look the victims in the eye. You simply sat there holding your head in your hands not looking at them."
Earlier, in a statement read to the court by his lawyer Alex Witten-Hannah, Parker said he was grief-stricken by what he had read of his offending and the impact on the boys and their whanau.
He asked his victims to not blame themselves but for him to take sole blame.
Parker said he accepted that he had abused a position of power and that there was premeditation in his actions.
Witten-Hannah told the court that "due to the lack of physical violence Parker is deserving of some mercy" .
"At 38 he is too young to lock him up and throw away the key." 

We disagree with Mr Witten-Hannah. Potentially, James Parker could be back out on the streets in 2020, at just 45 years of age. That is highly unlikely, given the sentence of preventive detention, but it is not impossible. And that would be a travesty of justice.

Parker's offending against 20 boys and young men is about as bad as it gets. He abused the trust of the children he was supposed to be looking after, he abused the trust of their parents and their whanau, and he abused the trust of his colleagues at Pamapuria School. Not only that; he has wrought enormous emotional damage on his victims, as was outlined by some of those who gave Victim Impact statements.

James Parker was reportedly in tears for much of today's sentencing. We hope that they were tears of grief for his many, many victims, but we suspect that his tears were more about the predicament he finds himself in. It is hard to have any sympathy whatsoever for him.