A predator, whose rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl shook Invercargill to its core, has been released from prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Peter George Davis, 73, spent more than 30 years behind bars after the brutal 1992 attack on Sarah Curry, which sparked public calls at the time for the reintroduction of the death penalty.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The man raped and strangled the girl; her body was later found near Bluff Highway.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was sentenced to life imprisonment and preventive detention, having racked up previous convictions for a machete attack on his partner and a sexually motivated attack on a stranger.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Davis was released from prison in June 2023 \u2013 to the Manawatu-Whanganui region – despite a letter written in 2010 by the victim\u2019s now-deceased father Brian saying he was \u201ccertain\u201d the man would reoffend if freed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Parole Board, though, noted the killer had completed \u201cextensive\u201d rehabilitation while in jail, including a specialist child-sex-offender programme, drug treatment and a year of individual sessions with a psychologist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Davis was paroled on an array of strict conditions, featuring compulsory electronic monitoring, a ban from internet-capable devices and a restriction from loitering near schools, parks or other recreation facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A former police officer connected to the case contacted the Otago Daily Times this week to highlight the release of the high-profile inmate, not because he was critical of the board\u2019s decision but because of concern the public had a right to know.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two monitoring hearings held in the year following Davis\u2019 parole were broadly positive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He had been reporting to his Probation Officer weekly and had regularly attended a relapse support group for child sex offenders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Davis had also reportedly\u00a0joined Alcoholics Anonymous , was accompanied by a mentor when out in public and was \u201cslowly developing his community support network”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, a progress report in April 2024 said a psychologist had identified issues around \u201cruminative thinking\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Panel convener Annable Markham noted the most recent information on Davis\u2019 file put him at average risk of sexual reoffending.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, the parolee had kept in close contact with Probation, was attending a church group and had returned a clean drug test.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Davis sought increased access to the internet because he felt the need to \u201cupskill\u201d but that was knocked back by the board.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor today we think the conditions are working as intended and do not see the need for any changes,\u201d Ms Markham said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Davis parole conditions include\u00a0<\/p>\n
To abide by an 8pm-8am curfew\u00a0To live at an approved address\u00a0To submit to electronic monitoring\u00a0To attend any treatment as directed\u00a0Not to possess alcohol or drugs\u00a0Not to enter licensed premises\u00a0To disclose new intimate relationships to Probation\u00a0To inform Probation about changed to employment status\u00a0Not to use internet-capable devices\u00a0Not to loiter near schools, early childhood centres, parks, libraries, swimming pools, churches or other specified areas\u00a0Not to have contact with under 16s\u00a0Not to contact victims\u00a0Not to travel south of Christchurch\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A predator, whose rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl shook Invercargill to its core, has been released…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-55269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}