Parole denied for absconder
A man involved in the firebombing of a house, who then fled the country on a false passport only to be deported back to New Zealand after violently abducting a sex worker, will be in prison a while longer.
Michael Edward Farley is serving six years and five months’ jail for perverting the course of justice and obtaining and using a false passport.
The offending had its genesis in 2010 and stretched from the rural Manawatu¯ village of Bunnythorpe to Vancouver, Canada.
Farley was charged with being unlawfully on a property in 2010 and arranged for a woman to assault one of the witnesses in the Bunnythorpe
Tavern to try to dissuade them from giving evidence.
When the witness was not at the tavern, the woman, high on methamphetamine, threw Molotov cocktails into the witness’ home while he, his wife and three children slept inside.
Farley went to Napier to try to create an alibi, but confessed to police and admitted perverting the course of justice.
He was on home detention for receiving stolen property leading up to his sentencing. He cut off his monitoring anklet in July 2011.
He had just one day left of his home detention sentence, but fled the country on a false passport.
His brother Kevin signed the documents he needed to get the false passport.
Despite police efforts, Farley appeared to have made a clean break.
But he resurfaced in 2013 after being arrested for kidnapping a sex worker in Canada. Canadian media reported officers saying the worker was kidnapped, driven to a secluded area, tied up, beaten and dragged behind a van down a city street as she tried to escape.
Farley served 22 months in Canadian prison for the abduction before being deported to New Zealand in November 2015.
He was deported despite claiming he needed protection, according to emails his partner in Canada sent Stuff in 2014.
While eligible for parole, he was declined an early release after a Parole Board hearing this month.
In a report released to Stuff, the board said a psychological report raised red flags.
Farley gave an inconsistent account of his offending, minimising his role, and did not fully understand his rehabilitation needs. He ‘‘superficially’’ took part in treatment sessions, constantly skimming over details of events and his offending, the board said. He had, however, done counselling and sessions with a psychologist, and wanted to take part in restorative justice with one of his victims.
He had a place to live if he got parole, but had not met a woman living there.
He told the board he had told the woman about his offending, but the board had doubts about how much detail he gave due to the comments in the psychological report.
‘‘Given Mr Farley’s offending in Canada, a release proposal that sees him going to the home of a female stranger does not seem appropriate,’’ the board said.