A disconnect between the Corrections Department and police became apparent today as officials scrambled to contain the fallout from the escape of sex offender Daniel Livingstone.
Corrections insists it did everything it could when Livingstone cut his electronic monitoring ankle bracelet off and does not know why police waited so long to inform the public.
Livingstone, who in 2006 raped a 10-year-old girl, sparked a manhunt after escaping from his Upper Hutt residence early yesterday morning.
Police found and arrested him near the Naenae shops in Lower Hutt after being notified by a member of the public about 3.30pm today.
Detective Inspector Grant Wormald said Livingstone was also spotted on the Hutt City CCTV camera network, which was monitored at the Lower Hutt police station.
Livingstone made a brief attempt to flee, but was caught in a police cordon that had been set up. He will now spend the night at Wellington central police station and is due to make an appearance in court tomorrow morning.
It emerged yesterday that Livingstone had been living in Upper Hutt since June this year under extended supervision after his release from jail in 2014 for the abduction and rape of a 10-year-old girl in Whangarei in 2006.
At 2am yesterday, Corrections received an alert that Livingston's ankle bracelet had been tampered with. But despite several visits to his property by a security guard and police, the house was not entered until 9am, when police found Livingstone was missing and had removed the bracelet.
Earlier, police moved to make it clear that efforts to locate Livingstone began when officers first went to the property at 3.50am yesterday when he failed to answer the door. Steps taken included area patrols, area and background inquiries and also checking an address of an associate.
But Upper Hutt mayor Wayne Guppy today blasted authorities, saying his community was kept in the dark and no officials bothered telling him about the escape before he read news reports yesterday afternoon.
"You've got a dangerous criminal, someone who has committed the worst crimes that are possible, locked up safely, so-called, and he can cut the anklet off and walk out into the community, and no response for seven hours? Sorry, as a nation, if that's as good as the technology we've got, then keep them behind bars."
Mr Guppy told the New Zealand Herald he had no idea Livingstone had been living in Upper Hutt till learning of his escape yesterday evening on a news bulletin. He said he "absolutely" should have been notified that a dangerous predator had been placed in his city under surveillance.
"From the point of view of the community, when you have people being monitored in the immediate area, people should know."
Four agencies involved
Four different agencies and companies were involved in monitoring or trying to track down Livingstone. Private company 3M New Zealand Ltd supplied electronic monitoring under Corrections' oversight.
Corrections acting national commissioner Rachel Leota said the first sign of a problem was when 3M's monitoring centre was alerted to a tamper about 2am yesterday. 3M then called Corrections' electronic monitoring response team and sent a guard from First Security to investigate.
In cases where an offender was still not found or did not respond, 3M again alerted Corrections, which then decided how to address the situation, she said.
"In this case, we advised the police that we wanted them to visit. Clearly, in Mr Livingstone's situation, he was found to have taken his bracelet off. And he was not at the residence that he should have been."
After initial attempts to locate the offender weren't successful, police took control of the situation, Ms Leota said.
A police superintendent said officers first visited Livingstone's address at 3.50am. Another five hours passed before police forcibly entered the property, and it was another seven hours after that until the public was alerted to his escape.
Livingstone's escape has sparked criticism of the wider electronic monitoring system, especially as he absconded the same day that murderer, paedophile and rapist Tony Robertson was sentenced for killing Blessie Gotingco on Auckland's North Shore. Robertson was also subject to an ESO, reliant in part on global positioning system (GPS) tracking.
If Corrections believed an offender posed such a risk, it could apply to a court for an ESO, to which 238 offenders were currently subject. Until last year, an ESO could extend for up to 10 years. Now, such an order could be made to extend indefinitely.
Livingstone, released from jail last year, was on a seven-year ESO, Ms Leota said. Corrections applied for a 10-year order, but a court granted the shorter order. Livingstone had an assigned probation officer, who visited him as recently as Wednesday. He was also subject to an intensive supervision order.
Livingstone's case comes as figures show there have been more than 15,500 breaches of conditions relating to offenders on home detention and community detention over a nine year period since 2006/7.
The figures relate to all breaches, not only electronic monitoring, and are for breaches rather than offenders - meaning some people might be responsible for multiple breaches. There were 3300 offenders being electronically monitored as of June this year.
Minister 'deeply concerned'
Corrections Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga said he was "deeply concerned" and had asked officials for more details about Livingstone's monitoring - but said all parts of the justice system had to work together.
"The Livingstone situation is simply not good enough. Police and Corrections must work together to achieve quicker and more effective response times," Mr Lotu-Iiga said in a statement.
"All parts of the justice system, from police, to courts and Corrections, work hard together to ensure strict conditions are set when there is no option but to release offenders."
GPS monitoring was not intended to be a silver bullet, he said, but was one of a number of tools used by Corrections.
- NZ Herald and NZME News Service
