Man who cut monitoring bracelet found

  • 18/08/2015
Man who cut monitoring bracelet found

Kawerau police have tonight found a man who had cut off his electronically monitored bracelet and went on the run.

Police say the man, who was sentenced to a six week home detention period at a Te Teko house, was found around 5:30pm hiding out at a local address.

He is now in custody.

Police say they were told by Corrections about 12:20am on Monday that the man had taken off his bracelet and then flagged him as missing in their system.

His risk profile was low, so was assigned for follow up by officers later that morning.

They went to the house to look for him around 11:30am yesterday, and an hour later was seen by police and chased.

A dog unit was called in to track him, but failed.

Corrections says the man had been sentenced for demanding to steal and had previous convictions for family violence and drink driving.

Central regional commissioner Terry Buffery says a tamper alert was triggered at the time of the removal of the bracelet and security staff responded within agreed time frames.

Once the man is found, Corrections says he may face charges.

The removal of tracking bracelets has been in the headlines lately with the escape of child sex offender Daniel Livingstone. Former security guards who told TV3's Story programme how easy it was to remove them.

Tony Robertson, convicted of raping and killing Auckland woman Blessie Gotingco, also had a GPS monitoring bracelet on at the time of her death.

Corrections says of the 3000 to 4000 offenders on electronic monitoring prior to February 2015, the majority were on radio frequency monitoring which provides an alert in the event the person has left a designated area.

Around 150, or less than 5 percent, were on GPS monitoring.

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