Accused boy roamed streets
A judge has questioned how a 12-year-old boy facing an aggravated robbery charge ended up roaming the streets with a hunting knife while in the custody of Oranga Tamariki.
The boy was the youngest of four people charged over the aggravated robbery of a bottle store in Hastings on September 3, in which a man stabbed numerous times was lucky to survive.
The boy, who is still before the Youth Court, was placed into the custody of Oranga Tamarikiministry for Children after his first court appearance on September 6. He appeared in the court again last week for a breach of bail. Judge Peter Callinicos heard the boy was placed in a Hastings motel with a paid minder engaged by the ministry.
The judge was told young people in this sort of arrangement could leave as they pleased and the minder had no ability to restrain them.
‘‘I am told that, apparently, the minder will often wait to see whether the young person eventually comes back before deciding what action to take,’’ the judge said.
The boy, who was on a 24-hour curfew, absconded from the motel three times.
‘‘If this arrangement is a policy of Oranga Tamariki then it is an extremely serious situation, one which is going to lead to a tragedy,’’ the judge said.
It was ‘‘almost in the realms of the bizarre that such an arrangement was permitted to occur’’, given the charge the boy was facing, he said.
The minder advised Oranga Tamariki at 9am last Thursday that the boy was missing.
It was unknown when he had gone missing from the small motel room he shared with the minder.
The boy was found about an hour later riding around Hastings on an allegedly stolen bike, carrying a hunting knife.
Judge Callinicos asked the Oranga Tamariki representative if there were any detention beds available but said his inquiries ‘‘ran into a realm of apparent policies of the ministry, which collectively seem to amount to reasons why they would not take a young person into their care’’.
When he asked why the boy could not be placed in detention he was told the charge was not serious enough.
The boy would have needed to have committed an offence such as manslaughter or murder for that. The law did allow for a child to be detained where he or she was likely to abscond, so the judge ordered the boy be detained. Judge Callinicos noted a bed had been located despite the ministry’s ‘‘first advice to me which appeared to be shielded behind apparent policy matters’’.
He said if the ministry failed to detain the boy he would consider ‘‘having the particular officer of the ministry brought before the court to explain why the court’s orders are not being adhered to, and the consequences of that’’.
Oranga Tamariki’s regional manager for youth justice in Wellington, East Coast, and South Island, Peter Whitcombe, said Oranga Tamariki ‘‘takes the safety of all tamariki, our staff and the wider community very seriously’’.
‘‘It is an extremely serious situation.’’ Judge Peter Callinicos