Man freed by police a day before killing
A chance was missed to save the life of Upper Hutt man Glen Collins when police stopped his killer the day before the killing.
David Charles Gilchrist, 37, was found not guilty of Collins’ murder, due to insanity, and he was made a special patient indefinitely, at a hearing in Wellington last Monday.
Gilchrist had stabbed 45-year-old Collins – a workmate he had been staying with – on September 20, 2018.
It emerged that police had stopped Gilchrist earlier apparently over unrelated thefts.
A check of his details revealed that mental health authorities had also been seeking him after he left Whangarei, where he had been receiving medication by injection.
Detective Inspector John van den Heuvel yesterday confirmed Gilchrist was arrested by police the day before the killing.
‘‘He was detained in relation to alleged minor thefts and taken to Upper Hutt Police Station for further inquiries to be made.’’
Northland District Health Board had reported Gilchrist as a missing person and, as a result, the arresting officer told Capital & Coast District Health Board of his arrest.
The DHB acknowledged the police notification. ‘‘In the absence of any appropriate legal authority to continue the detention of Mr Gilchrist in police custody, he was charged with theft and released on summons to appear in court at a later date.’’
Gilchrist went on to kill Collins the following day.
The case had been referred to the coroner.
A Capital & Coast spokesman said it could not comment on individual clients due to its obligations under the Privacy Act and the Health Information Privacy Code. Double-deckers are about to thread through Wellington’s bus tunnel – but with 30 centimetres of clearance there will be little room for error.
While the bus drivers’ union said a double-decker had already hit the roof in trials and it expected more safety work to be done, Greater Wellington Regional Council confirmed the bigger buses would be using the bus tunnel between Mt Victoria and Hataitai from this morning.
‘‘We’ve worked closely with NZ Bus and the city council to put precautionary measures, test runs and training in place,’’ a spokesman said.
The double-deckers were scheduled to go through the bus tunnel when timetables were overhauled in February but there was a delay as NZ Bus awaited delivery of the bigger buses and while safety measures were installed. The double-deckers will be used on the 31 and 36 routes.
Testing had been going on since before Christmas and the spokesman was unaware of any of the trial buses hitting the side.
Safety features such as red cat’s eyes and bollards would help drivers stay on the correct line through the tunnel.
‘‘There’s definitely margin for error. We wouldn’t be employing buses that weren’t safe.’’
Tramways Union secretary Kevin O’Sullivan said that, from the top corners of the bus to the edge of the tunnel, there would be 30cm of clearance. One bus had already hit the side of the tunnel during trial runs, he said.
He understood regular doubledecker commuter services would not use the tunnel till something was done to fix the small-marginof-error problem but it was unclear what could be amended.