MSD knew sex offender at motel
Dozens of vulnerable children were placed in a motel with a notorious child sex offender despite a case manager knowing he was living there.
The revelation is contained in documents released under the Official Information Act about the placement of Ronald Jeffries at the United Motel in Palmerston North by the Department of Corrections on April 30.
The documents show Jeffries, who was subject to a 10-year extended supervision order (ESO) after a lifetime of sexual offending, contacted the Ministry for Social Development (MSD) by phone on May 3, inquiring about a Housing New Zealand home.
The 66-year-old told the interviewing case manager he was staying at the United Motel – accommodation sourced and funded by Corrections.
The case manager assumed the placement was appropriate because Corrections was involved, and didn’t advise anyone else at MSD, according to the documents.
They didn’t realise Jeffries was living among vulnerable families.
From that date, another 13 families with 33 children were placed at the motel by MSD before Corrections took Jeffries into custody on July 26.
A major project was under way between Corrections and MSD to prevent this very type of miscommunication – after two incidents in 2017 involving recently released offenders – but had yet to be implemented, the papers show. Jeffries is charged with breaching the conditions of his ESO by having contact with children without permission, which he denies.
The documents released to Stuff, which include dozens of emails and a briefing to Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni, show officials were worried Jeffries had abused some of the children living at the motel.
Police investigated with the help of social workers and found no evidence of criminal offending.
Officials scrambled to find out if vulnerable families were living at any of the 15 motels Corrections was using to house high-risk offenders. It’s unclear from the documents if any such cases were identified, but at least two families stayed at motels also used by Corrections in the week ended August 10.
According to the documents, Jeffries lived at a Housing New Zealand property in Palmerston North, but was removed in early April after opposition from residents who worried about the safety of their children.
Corrections placed Jeffries at the United Motel after consulting the owner, who had made an assurance there were no families with children staying there on ‘‘an ongoing basis’’, the documents say. MSD, which regularly used the motel for emergency housing, was not notified.
According to the documents, checks later showed three Msdplaced families with eight children between them were staying at the motel when Jeffries moved in.
There was at least one family there when Corrections consulted the motel owner in mid-april about housing the sex offender. Another arrived the next day.
‘‘This clearly should have been a red flag to the motel owner to advise Corrections,’’ an August 14 email from a senior official to MSD deputy chief executive Viv Rickard says.
The motel owner declined to comment when contacted by Stuff.
The August 1 briefing to Sepuloni says the May 3 phone call between Jeffries and an MSD staff member was potentially a missed opportunity to intervene.
‘‘In short, it appears the MSD person completing the housing needs assessment obtained [Jeffries’] address as [the United Motel] but was unaware that MSD was using the motel for emergency housing.’’
Staff members carrying out housing assessments were not always involved in providing emergency housing because of the ‘‘nature and scope of the various roles that MSD staff undertake when delivering housing services’’, the briefing says.
In a statement to Stuff last week, Rickard said: ‘‘The ministry acknowledges that in this case, part of the organisation had information that should have been shared with other key staff. The ministry is currently reviewing its processes to ensure that this does not happen again.’’