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Mark Burton - the high-profile psychiatric patient who stabbed his mother to death six years ago - has been working part-time at Auckland Zoo as mental health authorities prepare to release him back into the community.
The news has come as a shock to Auckland Zoo, which says
it was unaware Burton was working there. Yesterday it arranged for his employment to be terminated immediately.
"We believe there are better areas than a zoo for such a high-profile person to be reintegrated back into society," said zoo director Glen Holland.
For the past four months, Burton has spent three mornings a week working for Second Chance Enterprises - a company contracted by the zoo to collect and sell manure, or "zoodoo", as it's known, to garden centres around the country.
Holland told the Herald on Sunday he was concerned a person of Burton's profile should be employed at the zoo. He had complained to Waitemata Health, which had organised the job for Burton, and had sought assurances that there would not be a repeat performance. He had been told, however, that Burton had been "heavily supervised" at all times at the zoo and had not posed any risk to the general public.
Burton's part-time job at Auckland Zoo is part of an extensive rehabilitation programme aimed at reintroducing him back into society.
Part of that includes giving Burton permission to make regular unsupervised visits to shops and to a gym in the Auckland suburb of Pt Chevalier. He was also allowed to bike between the zoo from the Mason Clinic, where he is a fulltime patient.
Burton, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, has been in the fulltime care of the clinic since 2002 after being found not guilty by reason of insanity of killing his mother, 49-year-old schoolteacher Paddy Burton.
The fatal stabbing happened just a day after Burton, 26, was discharged from Southland Hospital's in-patient mental health unit.
The case highlighted shortcomings in the mental health system, with the doctor in charge of his care later found guilty of professional misconduct and fined nearly $90,000. Several confidential settlements were also reached between the Burton family and the Southland District Health Board.
The Mason Clinic declined to comment on Burton's progress, but it is understood he is now in the final stages of his treatment and could be released back into the community in the next 12 months.
His father Trevor Burton said he was disappointed his son had lost his job at the zoo but in some respects could understand the reasons why.
"But saying that, I don't believe Mark would have posed a risk to anyone at the zoo. In fact, I'd put my life on it," Trevor Burton said.
"Mark was horrifically dangerous in the past, but I don't believe he is at all dangerous now.
"This will be a very severe kick in the guts for Mark because he loves animals and loved that job.
"He turned up on time, was conscientious and always went back to the Mason Clinic afterwards."
Trevor Burton was confident his son could cope with the transition back into society once he was finally released from the Mason Clinic. From the progress he had seen over the past five years, there was no reason why his son couldn't hold down a fulltime job and perhaps even a relationship. That said, though, it was crucial he continued to take his medication and never touched cannabis again.
"We are proud of what Mark has achieved.
"You don't flag people away because they have a mental illness - you should love them more," Trevor Burton said.
"I know his mum would be so very proud of him, too. She loved him so much, and Mark loved her."
Mason Clinic director Sandy Simpson said the success rate with patients such as Burton was extremely high. In the past four years, not one patient who had left the clinic had reoffended.
Unescorted visits, unaccompanied family outings and part-time employment were just tools in gradually helping patients reintegrate back into a normal life.
