Killer prefers to be in jail over rehab

A convicted murderer says he absconded because he could not cope with being placed at a drug rehabilitation centre.

‘‘He’s found being back in prison easier,’’ defence counsel Natalie Wham explained when Dean Raymond Purdy, 54, was sentenced in the Christchurch District Court.

Wham said Purdy had been released from prison into the rehabilitation programme at Moana House in Dunedin.

‘‘He just could not cope with the new situation, and felt the need to get away.’’

He now found it easier back in prison, and there was not going to be any further rehabilitative approach for Purdy.

Corrections would ‘‘focus on practical reintegration instead’’.

In 1991, Purdy, then 27, was sentenced to life imprisonment after strangling his wife, Debbie Purdy, in Auckland, during an argument about her work as a prostitute.

Her body was found in a toilet cubicle beside Karangahape Rd in the city. Purdy has a history of absconding. In 2008, he left the Salisbury Street Foundation in Christchurch, where he was attending a 16-week programme, and was free for two days before surrendering to the police.

He was recalled to prison from parole in 2014 after police caught him approaching prostitutes.

Three weeks later, he escaped after he was escorted to a medical appointment at Christchurch Hospital.

He was caught nearby soon after, by corrections officers who chased him on foot and in a van.

His latest offence occurred on April 30, 2018, when he cut his monitoring bracelet off his ankle and absconded from Moana House.

He was found and arrested without incident on Christchurch’s Main North Rd on May 17.

Judge Raoul Neave imposed four months’ jail on charges of breaching his parole conditions and possession of cannabis – 3.94g of the drug was found in his jersey pocket when he was caught in Christchurch after being on the run.

A Parole Board appearance on June 12 recalled Purdy to serve more of his life term and he will not be considered again until May.

This is the equivalent of a 22-month sentence.

Judge Neave said it was longer than he could impose, and a new jail term would have no effect on an existing life sentence.