Strict regime for Taylor’s release

Jailhouse litigant and career criminal Arthur Taylor will have to comply with myriad special conditions on his latest release to Dunedin, his Parole Board hearing report reveals.

Taylor was taken back into custody in May after 16 months on parole while serving a 17-year, six-month sentence for various offences including kidnapping and conspiring to deal methamphetamine.

He pledged to be on the straight and narrow and had taken on prisoner advocacy work when the Department of Corrections applied to have him recalled, as Taylor struggled to find a home after being evicted from a Porirua residence he had shared with a former friend.

He found himself homeless during the coronavirus lockdown and Corrections put him up in two motels before it applied to the Parole Board to recall him.

According to the Parole Board recall hearing report, released to Stuff yesterday, the application was made by Taylor’s probation officer, Jayden Southon, who claimed Taylor was an undue risk to community safety.

The board conceded Taylor’s risk was undue but agreed the risk could be mitigated by imposing conditions, including the proposal that Taylor leave Wellington and return to Dunedin, where he was initially housed by advocate Hazel Heal after his parole in 2019.

Taylor was ordered not to enter Wellington without Corrections’ permission, to be electronically monitored, and to be at home between 10pm and 6am, as well as other conditions. Taylor must meet again with the board in January 2021 after submitting to a full compliance report by Corrections.

Taylor will leave prison on Monday and travel to Dunedin.