The hearing has been delayed for almost a year because of trouble securing court time and the availability of witnesses.<\/p>\n
A specialist assessor told the court the outings were part of efforts to gradually increase J\u2019s exposure to, and tolerance of, being in the community, despite him remaining inside the van each time.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that does not take away from these experiences. He sees things outside the window,\u201d the assessor, a psychiatrist, said.<\/p>\n
Clinicians were now considering taking J to a quiet beach and allowing him outside the van for the first time to test how he coped, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to know what [his] response will be to that kind of outing, but I think it certainly deserves to be tried.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court also heard J had begun spending more time outside his private rooms where he lived alone within Auckland\u2019s Mason Clinic to interact with staff and other clients.<\/p>\n
While he did not have access to his psychologist for the past year other staff interacted with him in a \u201cpsychologically informed manner\u201d, the assessor said.<\/p>\n
He has recommended J remain in secure care for another three years to give him time to rehabilitate, and for a new home in the community to be found for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s a realistic timeframe.\u201d<\/p>\n
A February 2026 assessment of J found he continued to make threats and was occasionally violent but some of his behaviours, including an obsession with feet, were not sexual in nature.<\/p>\n
The assessor said J had more recently appeared \u201cmore cheerful\u201d because of the gradual introduction of \u201csocialisation\u201d activities.<\/p>\n
However, he admitted the pace of rehabilitation had been slower than intended because of staff availability.<\/p>\n
The court heard J had become severely obese, which meant mechanical restraints could no longer be used on him. This limited the number of staff who felt comfortable accompanying him on outings.<\/p>\n
The Mason Clinic was considering treating him with weight-loss drug Wegovy so he could fit restraints again. These restraints were made of soft \u201cleather-like\u201d fabric wrapped around his wrists, attached to a belt, designed to restrict his movement.<\/p>\n
Under cross-examination by the court-appointed lawyer for J, Andrew Finnie, the assessor said if J was released into the community, he would likely be arrested \u201cin a short space of time\u201d as he was likely to engage in \u201cpotentially aggressive … socially embarrassing behaviour\u201d.<\/p>\n
The lawyer for J\u2019s mother, Tony Ellis, argued J\u2019s detention was not justified given the original offence of breaking windows would have resulted in only three months\u2019 imprisonment. He likened J\u2019s detention to being like a \u201cgorilla kept in a cage\u201d, saying he was being treated like an animal, not a human being.<\/p>\n
Now in his 40s, J has been detained since 2006 after breaking windows in 2004. Repeated assessments have found he was too dangerous to release. For the past five years he has spent almost all his time in seclusion within his \u201ccluster\u201d of two rooms and a bathroom at the Mason Clinic.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s hearing was the first stage of the Family Court review. The second part would be heard in October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The hearing has been delayed for almost a year because of trouble securing court time and the availability…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[112528,5195,2565,40570,38711,3528,1757,2082,78,20558,5158,111,139,69,2849,255692,213,61,46960],"class_list":["post-554077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-anusha","tag-be","tag-bradley","tag-considering","tag-detained","tag-doctors","tag-drugs","tag-for","tag-in","tag-kept","tag-man","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-physical","tag-restraints","tag-sports","tag-to","tag-weightloss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554077","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=554077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}