A high-risk Dunedin sex offender has admitted breaching a court-imposed order for the third time in a year. Paul Thomas Neumann, 64, appeared in the Dunedin District Court on Tuesday and admitted breaching his extended supervision order (ESO). The ESO allows corrections to closely monitor high-risk offenders for up to 10 years. A corrections summary recorded Neumann was made subject to an ESO in November 2017 after he served a prison sentence for multiple sexual offences against a young girl. A condition of the order was that he not enter or loiter near exclusion zones, including schools, parks, libraries and swimming pools. Yesterday, Neumann admitted that on 10 occasions during April and May this year, he entered an exclusion zone near the Oval. He told a probation officer he was aware of the exclusion zones and even had a map detailing them “pegged up on the wall”. He drove on a street in the exclusion zone because he “thought it was quicker to drive this way” and “did not think of talking to my probation officer”, the defendant said. Judge Noel Walsh sentenced Neumann to six months’ community detention with a curfew that would keep him home between 7.30am and 10am and 1pm and 6pm on weekdays and between 9am and 6pm on weekends. In March this year, the defendant was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment for driving through the Oval exclusion zone and loitering near the Dunedin Public Library. In January, he was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for entering the Warehouse which he was not allowed to go to. And in April last year, he breached his ESO by entering the Oval and was sentenced to two months’ community detention. Neumann’s ESO expires in November next year. felicity.dear@odt.co.nz
