Pravin Kumar hoped his efforts to skip bail and miss his trial date might help him avoid a trial on two rape charges.
Instead, a jury found him guilty at a trial held in his absence - and his attempt to hook up with a woman via the internet led to him being arrested afterwards.
Today the 41-year-old was sentenced in the High Court in Auckland to preventive detention by Justice Chris Allan with a minimum imprisonment period of seven years on two charges of rape, two of kidnapping, one of male assaults female and one of indecent assault.
The sentence means he can only be released once the seven years have elapsed if he admits to his offending and shows the authorities it is safe to release him.
Kumar denied the rape charges and has indicated he may appeal.
He was granted electronic bail after being charged with the two 2008 rapes of two teenage women.
But he freed himself from his electronic bracelet while on bail and didn't turn up to his trial when it was due to start on October 7 last year.
Justice Allan said Kumar admitted to report writers prior to sentencing that he was gambling that the trial might not happen.
"You were hoping the complainants would not ultimately give evidence if the trial was adjourned by your absence," Justice Allan said.
However, he ruled the trial would take place without Kumar present, and a jury found him guilty on six charges.
Justice Allan said he understood an appeal was possible, with the decision to hold the trial without him present likely to be one of the grounds.
Some time after the trial, Kumar made contact with a woman on the internet. The woman subsequently contacted police and Kumar was taken into custody.
The two rapes for which he convicted happened in September and October 2008. Kumar had been in custody since March 2007 on another rape charge but he was released in June 2008 after the complainant said she did not wish to give evidence.
The September 26, 2008 rape was of an 18-year-old woman who was working as a part-time prostitute. Kumar picked her up in his car with the intention of having sex, but the woman got out after she insisted he should pay first and that he should use a condom.
Kumar seized her and took her back to the car where he raped her while using a condom as she struggled to free herself.
The woman, who has two children, said in her victim impact statement she was now fearful of sex work and her family now goes without some things as a result.
The second rape was of a 19-year-old woman who suffers from schizophrenia.
Kumar picked her up in his car and took her to a carpark, where they drank alcohol, before he drove her to a poorly-lit area.
There he told her to get in the back of the car and said he wouldn't drive her home until he got what he wanted, after which he indecently assaulted and raped her.
"She thought you would kill her if she did not agree," Justice Allan said.
The woman then escaped and ran to a nearby building where she found a security guard who contacted police.
In setting the sentence of preventive detention, Justice Allan took into account the 2008 rapes and a 2003 incident for which he was jailed for three years.
In that incident, he took an 18-year-old woman he had met once before to his house, where the pair drank alcohol. He made sexual advances on her which she rejected, after which he wouldn't let her leave his bedroom.
As she tried to get out a window a neighbour came to her aid. Kumar attacked the neighbour with secateurs.
He admitted charges of injuring with intent and attempted abduction in 2004 and was jailed for three years.
However, during the sentencing process for today he resiled from his guilty pleas for the 2004 incident, Justice Allan said.
He said Kumar was in denial and felt a sense of sexual entitlement, and that the community needed to be protected from him until he changed his ways.
"Your future lies in your own hands," Justice Allan said.
