Warrants issued for sex offenders on run

Justice Minister Judith Collins says ESOS are not adequate. Palome Migone reports.

The Corrections Department lost track of high-risk child sex offenders it was meant to be monitoring in the community 13 times in the space of a year.

Today, two men are on the run after breaching extended supervision orders (ESO) that subject them to parole-type conditions for up to 10 years after their release from prison.

Brian Conroy, 43, and Adam Biddle, 39, both convicted for sexual offences against children, have warrants for their arrest.

It is the third time both have breached their conditions. Two of those breaches were for coming into contact with children under 16. However, the breaches did not lead to any further charges for sexual offending.

Conroy is believed to be in the Wellington area and Biddle around Hamilton.

Corrections’ general manager of community probation services, Katrina Casey, yesterday gave assurances that Conroy and Biddle’s latest breaches did not involve any contact with children.

‘‘We are getting on to it awfully fast and acting very quickly, and that’s what I expect when we are managing these offenders,’’ she said.

When offenders cannot be found, Corrections can request a warrant for their arrest.

Warrants could be issued if a person failed to report to a probation officer, stayed away overnight without approval, or lived at an unapproved address.

In the year to June 30, 2011, 13 warrants were issued. Figures show a total of 64 child sex offenders breached their conditions that year, of which 29 came into contact with children under 16, including seven who were involved in ‘‘incidents’’.

Ms Casey said the number was ‘‘expected’’ given there were 209 offenders subject to an ESO and showed Corrections staff were ‘‘vigilant’’.

‘‘What I’m seeing is numbers that reflect the difficult nature of these offenders and the effective monitoring that our staff are doing. They are not letting them get away with anything,’’ she said.

There have been seven people convicted of further sexual offences against children while under an ESO as of May 2010. Corrections did not release recent numbers, saying it would have had to go into each offender’s file to collect the information.

‘‘As far as I’m aware there is very few of those who ended up with any sex offending charges because of those breaches,’’ Ms Casey said.

ESOS have been under scrutiny since February when Terito Henry Miki, who was under a supervision order, was found to be teaching children at several schools.

He is set to be sentenced on Friday on seven charges of using a document to gain pecuniary advantage and four of breaching his protection order.

The case sparked a ministerial inquiry and led Corrections Minister Anne Tolley to look into a sex offenders’ register, which would allow agencies to have better information-sharing and ‘‘stop any of these individuals slipping through the cracks’’.

Justice Minister Judith Collins has said ESOS were not adequate, and it was ‘‘too easy’’ in some cases for things to go wrong.

She announced plans last week for public protection orders that would apply to a small number of ‘‘incredibly dangerous’’ sex offenders – estimated to be between five and 12 in a decade.

Officials were working on proposals to house the offenders in ‘‘something like a flatting situation’’ on prison land. Authorities would be able to apply to the High Court for an order and offenders could ask for a review.

‘‘We are concerned that public safety can be jeopardised by a small number of people who reach the end of a prison sentence and continue to pose a very high risk for imminent and serious sexual or violent reoffending,’’ she said yesterday.