Parole Board Decisions Leave Department of Corrections in a No Win Situation

18th August 2016

“Any violent offender or sexual offender who is considered high risk, whether or not subject to a Public Protection Order or Extended Supervision Order, has no place in our community. If the Parole Board decide that they should be released from prison on parole, then they should be paroled to a secure facility within prison grounds” Guthrie

Nigel Robert Gately, 48, escaped from Salisbury Street Foundation, a residential facility for prison parolees in St Albans, Christchurch, on Tuesday. Police captured him in Nelson on Wednesday night following a manhunt across the upper South Island.

Scott Guthrie, Child Abuse Spokesperson for the SST says, “Any high risk offender that is paroled should be paroled into a secure environment for the safety of the public, as well as that of the offender.”

“Stewart Murray Wilson is living in a secure environment on Wanganui prison grounds where he is monitored 24 hours per day. The Government needs to step up and actually support the Department of Corrections instead of leaving them with no option but to dump these offenders back into our communities on a weekly basis, putting the community at risk.”

Gately, who had previously served 6 years of an 8 year prison term for the rape of a Christchurch prostitute, was paroled in 2000 but absconded only months after his release. While on the run he viciously attacked and attempted to rape two women.

“The Parole Board is putting the public at high risk and has repeatedly contradicted their own statements and consistently shows the public that public safety is certainly not their paramount concern, as it should be.” On the day the New Zealand Parole Board ordered his release they stated that “Gately is still assessed as posing a high-risk of sexual re-offending’.

“Why an earth would they release an offender they acknowledge as posing a high-risk of reoffending?”

Electronic-monitoring bracelets have come under scrutiny in recent months after a considerable number of accused/defendants and criminals have escaped from them.

The Department of Corrections said it had tested the bracelets thoroughly before they were introduced in February 2015.

It has since ordered improvements to the straps, after a string of radio and televised stunts in which broadcasters cut off the bracelets with kitchen scissors.

“Electronic monitoring is obviously a dismal failure and the public are being exposed to an unacceptable risk,” says Guthrie.

“There have been 14 breaches by serious dangerous offenders in 7 month; surely it is not rocket science to ensure this cannot happen.”

“The Sensible Sentencing Trust believes high risk offenders must be housed in prison grounds to ensure the public, particularly children, are kept safe until such time they are no longer deemed a risk to the safety of the community.”

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/83257757/convicted-rapist-nigel-gately-on-the-run-in-christchurch

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