What can be done to stop serial offender Margaret Dodds?
Margaret Mabel Dodds has been trespassed from just about everywhere – buses, malls and parks.
Her face is well known, her photograph pinned up in school staffrooms around Christchurch, dozens of news stories in the past few years and countless Facebook posts by parents concerned by her behaviour towards children.
Dodds, 60, who has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and found to be attracted to pre-pubescent males, is a longterm resident of the Princess Margaret Hospital’s Seager Clinic, a mental-health facility. Her history of following and lingering around children is extensive. She has assault and trespass convictions and has been jailed.
A school principal once described Dodds as ‘‘scary and verbally aggressive to children’’.
Others have called her menacing, unsavoury, frightening, a nuisance.
Yet she continues to pop up outside schools and playgrounds. Can anything be done?
For reasons unknown, she does not come under the Mental Health Act, so can leave the clinic as she wishes. Staff are not allowed to touch her or stop her. She once told them she ‘‘couldn’t care less’’ about court orders forbidding her from contact with children.
The Ministry of Education says Dodds is not a matter for them.
The Canterbury District Health Board refuses to discuss her.
When she finishes any community-based sentence she goes off Probation Services’ books. Police cannot watch her 24/7. It has been said if Dodds was discharged from the clinic, there would be nowhere for her to go.
As one lawyer said: Dodds has fallen through the cracks.
So it was no surprise that, on Thursday, she was at it again.
She was spotted loitering outside Cashmere’s Thorrington School. Police were alerted, but by the time they arrived, she had left.
Canterbury district crime manager Detective Inspector Corrie Parnell said Dodds had a habit of popping back onto the police radar after periods of quiet.
‘‘She’s well known within the public and, when we get the activity like Thursday, we encourage the public to call us, which is invariably what happens.
‘‘We’ve dealt with matters pretty quickly in terms of locating Margaret. Where there is criminal offending we generally put that before the courts.’’
Parnell said several officers, mainly community liaison officers, helped monitor Dodds. They worked with probation officers, health services and other specialists.
Yet, as Parnell says, ‘‘the problem hasn’t gone away’’.
‘‘Regardless of gender of the person that’s carrying out those activities, it’s always going to cause public alarm, particularly when we’re around children.’’
He said the focus should be on a long-term solution. ‘‘[Police] can’t sit out there 24/7 with Margaret. It’s more complex than police.’’
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
In 2010 Dodds’ lawyer told the court her condition meant it was ‘‘mission impossible’’ for her to stay out of trouble.
In 2014 a judge said almost everything had been tried to bring Dodds’ behaviour under control. ‘‘Obviously, there is a psychiatric or psychological problem, but I don’t think anyone has been able to ‘crack’ it.’’
Another judge said she was ‘‘nuisance offending’’.
She voluntarily went to prison in 2015 as her lawyer said it was ‘‘the only place’’ she felt safe. ‘‘She has been trespassed from most of Christchurch, including public transport. She finds herself being constantly followed by the police. She has given up.