Search for missing man intensifies

Brett Hall's son and mother, Damian and Lee, at a police briefing earlier this week. Photo / Wanganui Chronicle

A huge search team will camp overnight on rugged property north of Wanganui during a concentrated effort to find missing Palmerston North man Brett Hall.

An air force Iroquois helicopter and up to 80 police, army personnel and volunteers are combing up to 20 kilometres of rough country looking for the 47-year-old.

Mr Hall who has what police describe as a "chequered past", was last seen at his isolated lifestyle block nearly two weeks ago, and reported missing two days later. Police are running both a homicide investigation and a search exercise for Mr Hall.

This weekend the numbers have been significantly boosted to cover as much ground as possible. Specialist alpine rescue volunteers from Palmerston North, Ruapehu and Taranaki have joined the operation to abseil into areas too difficult to reach on foot.

The Iroquois would be dropping searchers into areas that could not be searched normally on foot.

The weekend search operation kicked off at 9am today and will continue until nightfall. Searchers will then camp overnight and continue again until nightfall tomorrow.

Senior Sergeant Darcy Forrester said the majority of the searchers were volunteers who had day jobs and were giving up their entire weekend to help the operation.

"We couldn't do what we do without their significant and invaluable support.

"An operation of this size is not typical but the terrain is not typical and we are also mindful that there is a homicide investigation running in parallel to our search. The more area we cover without finding Mr Hall, the more that will assist the homicide team in determining whether or not there is an innocent explanation for his disappearance."

Detective Senior Sergeant Dave Kirby said police were still appealing for people who had been to Mr Hall's property in recent months to come forward, in particular the driver of a white flat deck ute seen leaving the track to the property about 7pm on Sunday, May 29.

"It is important they do so as we need to know whether Mr Hall was at the property that evening and we need to eliminate that vehicle from our inquiries."

Mr Kirby said if the driver failed to come forward, his actions would be considered suspicious.

Police yesterday released a CCTV image of Mr Hall taken less than a week before he went missing.

The image was captured at a local service station on May 25 and showed the lifestyle block owner wearing a checked shirt, singlet, black shorts and jandals.

"We hope releasing this more up-to-date image will help us to identify more people who may have seen Mr Hall, spoken to him or served him in a shop, so that we can continue piecing together his movements before he disappeared," Mr Kirby said.

Mr Hall was paroled in October 2009 after being sentenced to seven-and-a-half years jail for drug dealing and receiving and unlawful possession of a pistol.

- NZPA