Recidivist offender David Rata Bagley is being released from prison two months before his statutory release date.
Recidivist offender David Rata Bagley is being released from prison two months before his statutory release date.
WARNING: This article describes domestic violence which may be upsetting to some people.
David Rata Bagley, 43, will be released from prison in July under strict conditions.
Bagley has a 25-year criminal history, including violence against the mother of his 11 children.
The Parole Board approved his release with conditions including an ankle bracelet and a curfew.
A survivor of childhood abuse in state care who has committed 168 crimes as an adult, mainly shoplifting and domestic violence, will be released from prison in July under strict conditions.
The Parole Board has approved therelease of David Rata Bagley, 43, “by a narrow margin”.
Bagley has a criminal history spanning 25 years and running to 16 pages.
He appeared before the Parole Board in early May for the third time in his current jail term. He was turned down for release on the previous two.
Report notes high risk
A psychological report prepared in July 2024 assessed that he had a high risk of violent reoffending.
That report recommended that he should do a violence prevention programme before he left the Otago Corrections Facility, but he will not get to the top of the waiting list for such a course before his statutory release date in September.
The Parole Board instead approved his release in July, on strict conditions, including imposing no-go areas and putting him on an ankle bracelet for monitoring.
The conditions also banned him from having face-to-face contact with any victims, to observe a 10pm to 6am curfew, and to undergo random testing to enforce a drug and alcohol ban.
Bagley is banned from visiting shopping malls, or from entering commercial premises with a person under 18.
David Bagley is currently at the Otago Corrections Facility south of Dunedin. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery
In a decision released on Friday, the board said it expected probation officers to show “zero tolerance” and have Bagley recalled to prison if he breached release conditions before his statutory release date of September 3.
Bagley, from Christchurch, was sent to prison in February 2024 for two years and four months for wilful damage, threatening to kill, assault on a person in a family relationship and 11 charges of theft.
That sentence was later reduced to two years and two months on appeal to the High Court, which considered that the abuse he suffered in state care as a child had “causatively contributed” to his offending.
A probation officer’s report before his sentencing described Bagley as “a consistent recidivist offender who despite previous rehabilitation interventions continues this [offending] behaviour, suggesting he is either supportive of it or resistant to treatment”.
Bagley’s latest offending was in June 2023, when he was living apart from the mother of his children and sleeping rough in Hagley Park, Christchurch.
He called his partner and asked her to pick him up, then yelled abuse at her when he got in the car. She told him to get out.
Bagley trashed the house
Later, he went into her home, trashed multiple rooms, and ripped the landline phone out of the wall and put the handset down the toilet.
When his partner returned home, Bagley threatened to stab her and pulled her off her feet by grabbing her ponytail while some of the children yelled at him to stop.
Bagley let go of her and she took a step away from him. He kicked her once in the right side of the body and once more to the side of the head after she fell to the ground.
The woman had swelling and bruising to the sides of her face and the top of her head, and abrasions on her forehead.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.
