KEY POINTS:
A blogger is to retrieve a missing file naming high risk offenders released from prison and return it to officials.
Martyn Bradbury, who runs the Tumeke blog site, caused headaches for the Corrections Department when he revealed on his site that a highly sensitive file was found on an Auckland street.
"Little birdy tells me a bloke at his work has just found, on the street, a dossier of all the high risk/high profile offenders currently out on parole or due release," he wrote.
"It's a meaty tome, with about 30 pages, with offences, issues that could cause problems, addresses paroled to, the lot.
"Corrections are in for a roasting about leaving it and they don't even know it yet."
Corrections Minister Phil Goff was alarmed. He said the information could be misused and the community put at risk if the offenders were targeted.
Corrections Department boss Barry Matthews told NZPA the file included a list of high risk high profile people and was found outside one of the courts.
Corrections officials and police went to see Mr Bradbury and asked for his assistance. He had given an assurance to organise its return and that the contents would be kept confidential.
It included names, some home addresses and details of offending.
"Its purpose is to inform people within our department, like probation, prison services, psychologists and police and sometimes even forensic services people... to work on some of the issues that need to be resolved for people who have been released into the community or likely to be released on parole," Mr Matthews said.
The department knew who had lost the file - sometime yesterday afternoon - and the individual did not realise it was missing until publicity, he said.
"We are making inquiries into how it happened and making sure it can't happen again."
He would not give any details about the individual.
National Party corrections spokesman Simon Power said the case would knock public confidence in the department's ability to manage high-risk offenders.
The incident comes in the same week as Wellington Coroner Garry Evans' critical report into parolee Graeme Burton's murder of Wainuiomata father Karl Kuchenbecker.
Mr Power also raised the case of a paroled serial sex offender who was recalled to jail for an alleged sex assault. He had been living near a school.
"I fear that no amount of explaining will dispel the perception that this is a department with a culture that not only tolerates frequent mistakes but seeks to deny responsibility even in the face of overwhelming evidence - as happened over the death of Mr Kuchenbecker."
- NZPA
