One-man crime wave goes to jail indefinitely – again

Thursday, 1 February 2024

Damon Exley has got a second indefinite prison sentence of preventive detention and the 65-year-old victim he abducted and raped says her sentence is just as permanent.

However, the sentencing hardly went to plan. Exley – initially appearing on a video screen – refused to face the camera and barely answered questions. He fired his lawyers and represented himself.

He had the previous day warned the court he would engage in a “dirty protest” using his own faeces if he was brought to court to appear in person. He later said he would not.

In the High Court at Wellington on Thursday, Justice Paul Radich refused a cameras in court application from Stuff as Exley had a message on the back of his t-shirt reading “not guilty FK U”.

When he was not allowed to wear that, he tried to take a new shirt off to show that he had written on his back.

He was removed, then refused to come back. The judge ordered the sentencing proceed with Exley within earshot but out of view of the camera.

Finally more than five hours after it was due to start, Justice Radich sentenced him to preventive detention, saying reports said Exley was at high risk of further offending and the community needed protection.

The only thing Exley said for himself was that he did not accept anything imposed on him for something he had not done.

In her victim impact statement read to the court, Chloe (not her real name) outlined she needed to see counsellors weekly, was untrusting, scared to drive as it gave her panic attacks and frightened to leave her home. Her life has been irreversibly changed.

She was trying to do something kind when she picked up a hitchhiker along State Highway 1 north of Wellington in the pouring rain after attending a protest at Parliament.

But Damon Exley, now 54, also known as John Douglas Willis, had just escaped from Rimutaka Prison, in Upper Hutt, and a major manhunt was under way to find him.

Exley ‒ once described as a “one-man crime wave” ‒ had spent much of the past four decades behind bars with more than 250 convictions, including seven for escape. He is already serving a sentence of preventive detention.

In July 2023, Exley was found guilty of abduction for the purpose of sexual connection, assault with a weapon, and rape. He had also pleaded guilty to escaping.

Chloe has shared with Stuff the horrific details of what happened to her over six hours.

In February 2022 Exley disguised himself as a Corrections officer, cut through a fence in Rimutaka Prison’s plant nursery, stole a contractor’s van and drove through two security checkpoints to freedom.

Chloe had been at the Parliament protest and heard about the escape.

Before dawn on February 20, she woke in the back of her silver SUV. Given the bad weather, she decided to head home early.

After picking up Exley, Chloe continued up the coast. They passed through Ōtaki, Levin and Shannon.

Near Palmerston North Chloe pulled over at an intersection saying she had to turn off to get home.

“This is where I have to drop you off,” she said. “You go straight ahead.”

But instead of getting out of the car, the man pulled out a yellow-handled knife with an eight-inch blade. He said: “I don’t want to scare you, but have you heard about the escaped prisoner? You’re not dropping me here, you’re going to drive me to Hunterville, and I’m going to have sex with you.”

As they drove, Chloe thought of nothing but escape. But every time she came up with a plan, she thought of Exley’s knife and the consequences of failure.

Near Sanson, Exley raped her in the back off her car and, after it was over, said his plans had changed and he wanted to go to Masterton.

Finally, at a laundromat in Masterton, where she had convinced Exley to stop so he could dry his clothes, she convinced a man inside to call police.

Chloe told the court: “ I stand here as a survivor of a truly horrific attack. I’m a different person now to who I used to be. My family miss the real me the most, as my mind is absent.”

Chloe said she had lost her husband 18 months before and the attack had delayed the normal grieving process.

She said thoughts of anger run through her mind constantly but for him, nothing had changed. He was in prison before this happened and still is, getting all his needs met.

“But for me I must struggle for everything. For my own well-being I may eventually be able to forgive your actions but I will never forget. I sincerely hope that for the remainder of your natural life, you will reflect on your actions and be able to forgive yourself, may God help you with that. My sentence, however, is permanent.”

After court Chloe wanted to thank police and the courts system for securing a conviction. But he should never have escaped in the first place, given his status, she said.

“The fact that his escape was carefully planned over a long period of time and ultimately successful makes a mockery of the criminal justice system as a whole. If the Corrections Department cannot keep us safe from incarcerated prisoners then who can?

“I will never be free from the damage that I and my family have sustained as a consequence of this man’s deviant behaviour and I can only pray that no-one else suffers the fate I have been subjected to.”