Joseph Thompson is said to be the first dedicated serial rapist ever brought to book in Auckland. He was certainly an odious character who needed to be taken off the streets for good, but this documentary about the hunt for him is ridiculous. It is related in part by young girls, but the police concerned seem to spend a lot of time grinning for the camera and telling the viewer how difficult it was to catch him. Just how difficult could it have been? This was an area with a population of around a million, which makes at most half a million men. Given that his description narrowed him by racial group and age plus the fact that he was believed to hunt locally...By this time too, DNA was fairly well advanced. It is difficult to view "Out Of The Dark" as anything but a PR programme for the New Zealand police, and not a very good one. Well, they did catch him eventually.
In spite of pleading guilty to attacks on dozens of women and girls - one as young as ten - Thompson was sentenced to only thirty years with a minimum of twenty-five without parole. A decade and more on from this documentary he would confess to two further rapes, but leaving that aside, how can they ever consider letting this guy out?
In spite of pleading guilty to attacks on dozens of women and girls - one as young as ten - Thompson was sentenced to only thirty years with a minimum of twenty-five without parole. A decade and more on from this documentary he would confess to two further rapes, but leaving that aside, how can they ever consider letting this guy out?