New Zealand Parole Board -

Parole Hearing

Under section 21(1) of the Parole Act 2002

Trevor Ian GIBBS

Hearing: 10 February 2020

at Tongariro Prison

Members of the Board:

• Judge G F Ellis – Panel Convenor
• Mr A Spierling
• Ms M Kleist

Counsel:                                            

• Ms A Maxwell-Scott

Support persons:

• [withheld]

DECISION OF THE BOARD

1. Trevor Ian Gibbs was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for indecencies against a boy aged 12 to 16, inducing a boy of that age to do an indecent act and sodomy with a male over the age of 16.  He was found guilty at jury trial, having pleaded not guilty on the advice of his counsel.
2. His sentence commencement date was 23 February 2018.  He will achieve parole eligibility on 24 February 2020 and his sentence expiry date is 22 February 2024.
3. The criminal record history and the Judge’s sentencing notes before us show that the offending occurred in August 1975 when Mr Gibbs would have been aged about 29.  He has two previous convictions in 2006 for indecent assault against a boy in 1973.
4. The parole assessment report before us advises that he has been identified and sentence-planned for a short intervention programme for child sex offenders (SIP CSO), with a tentative start date on 24 April 2020.  The report tells us that Mr Gibbs does not have a safety plan because he believes that, given the historical nature of the offending and the fact that he is no longer engaged in teaching or any other close interaction with young persons,  he no longer poses any risk.
5. He has proposed accommodation, which is not supported by Corrections, although it has attractive features of involving the close support and prosocial encouragement of a group of supporters who have been with him through his sentence journey.
6. The Board has a psychologist’s report dated 23 December 2019, which advises that he is assessed at a low risk of sexual re-offending.  That report indicates that he does not have a high level of reintegrative needs but does recommend that he would benefit from some treatment to look at his attitudes that appear to distort the offending.
7. Mr Gibbs acknowledged that he has yet to undertake a programme specifically addressing his index offending, although he did refer to a course of counselling that he had undertaken in 2006 following his earlier convictions.
8. The Board considered at some length whether it would be a sufficient reduction of his level of risk to trust Mr Gibbs to receive an appropriate rehabilitation programme in the community.  But after that deliberation we have arrived at the decision that he still remains an untreated sex offender and, in the Board’s view, the possibility unspecified of a programme at some as yet uncertain date was not a sufficient minimisation of his risk.  The material before us from Corrections and in the psychologist’s report makes it clear that a sex offender intervention programme is necessary.  Accordingly after consideration of all the material, including the very positive submissions of his supporters and counsel,   the Board requires that he undergo an intensive if short rehabilitative programme before he could be considered suitable for release.
9. On that basis, parole today is declined.  The Board will see him again in six months, a date to be set before the end of August 2020.
10. The Board strongly recommends to Corrections that the SIP CSO be provided to Mr Gibbs at the earliest possible opportunity and, if necessary, that he is moved to another prison where such a programme will be made available to him promptly.