Eric Kevin Baker will be released from Ngawha Prison, pictured, on a time-served basis in about two weeks. Photo / Chris Rudsdale
A high-risk convicted sex offender has gone on to breach his Extended Supervision Order (ESO) 14 times, three times this year alone.
In 2018, Eric Kevin Baker was jailed for more than four years for impregnating a 27-year-old woman who had the mental age of a 5- to 7-year-old.
But since then, the Department of Corrections successfully applied to have Baker put on an ESO.
Corrections use an ESO to monitor and manage the long-term risk posed by a high-risk sex offender or a very high-risk violent offender.
The 45-year-old appeared via audio-visual link from Ngawha Prison in Northland for sentencing on three charges of breaching his ESO.
The most serious breach involved a representative charge covering a 12-month period for “repeated conduct” with two girls under 16.
Then, on March 21 this year, he cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet, leaving him “totally unmonitored”.
When police caught him, he had cannabis seeds and a pipe.
He has been in custody since then.
Judge Philip Crayton said that while he had these three latest breaches, he’d notched up his previous 11, “in a very short space of time”.
They mostly occurred in November and December 2022.
“You must realise now the courts are getting to the point where they’re getting closer and closer to the maximum sentence of two years.”
He noted that when Baker was cooperating with Corrections, he went 12 months without reoffending.
“Here, as is identified in recent times, you have not managed to go six weeks without breaching your extended supervision order.
“You’re going to keep going back to prison.
“You’re going to be released in the not-too-distant future.
“My advice to you ... is to work out the framework with probation ... to ensure that you have a platform of co-operation which is sustainable and will stop you breaching.”
He took an overall starting point of 17 months’ jail before allowing a discount for his guilty pleas, landing at an end point of 12 months’ prison.
Baker will be freed from jail on a time-served basis in about two weeks.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.