By Amanda Gillies
A sadistic sex offender caught breaching parole has already been sexually and physically victimised after being returned to custody, says his lawyer.
Ronald Van Der Plaat, 78, was jailed in 2000 for the repeated rape of his daughter over 23 years.
He was released in 2010 under parole conditions which included no unsupervised contact with children, but last month his neighbour contacted police after seeing him alone with a four-year-old girl at Auckland Museum.
3 News has been told CCTV footage shows Van Der Plaat holding a little girl's hand with one hand and in the other he's holding a soft cuddly toy. When he sees his neighbour he drops the little girl's hand and hurries off.
He’s been charged with having contact with the girl at the museum, on a trip to Wellington and at an Orewa motel for three nights.
Van Der Plaat lawyer’s fought for his client’s identity to be suppressed, saying he'd already been sexually and physically assaulted and urinated on behind bars.
The magistrate turned down name suppression, but said Van Der Plaat would be now be segregated.
Van Der Plaat had been living directly across from a children's daycare since being released, and neighbours say they were prepared if they ever saw him approach kids.
“Just give him a hiding. Just ask him what he was doing with them. It's shocking what he did,” says neighbour Lawrence Dyer.
Van Der Plaat was living in the same house where he raped his daughter. It's on a small street, and most of the homes have children.
“We were trying to stop it. But the law's the law, you can't stop it can you?” says Mr Dyer.
But this time at least, a neighbour has.
3 News