Tip-off helps police snare fugitive

A cook who cut off his monitoring bracelet and fled police has been captured.

A Northland man on the run from police after ripping off his electronic bail monitor is finally back in custody.

Para Mangu Hepi George Hendriks, 28, a cook of Kamo, was on the run for over a month but publicity in the Northern Advocate and on television show Police 10/7 led to his capture.

Police say they received an anonymous call to their Crimestoppers line which led to the arrest of Hendriks over the weekend. He was found at a house in Whangarei and appeared in the Whangarei District Court on Monday. He entered no pleas to charges of injuring with intent to injure and a charge of resisting arrest resulting from his contact with police on the weekend. Hendriks was remanded in custody until February 23 next year.

It is alleged he left his Opononi property where he was bailed to over a month ago, before he ripped off the anklet 1.5km away on SH12.

A monitoring company was alerted and police were also called to the house.

In September a man who sparked a police manhunt when he cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet and assaulted a security guard turned himself in to Whangarei police. Thomas Shortcliffe, who allegedly cut off his ankle bracelet on August 29 while on bail at an Auckland house, walked into the Whangarei police station.

As part of the electronic bail monitoring process, a security guard went to the Papakura property Shortcliffe was bailed to when an alert was activated.

Police say Shortcliffe, 44, assaulted the guard and fled. He was on bail for charges that included kidnapping.

As at September 16, six community-based offenders had absconded while being monitored on a Corrections-administered sentence.