One of the country’s top cops has said police could have publicly released information about a man who escaped from prison sooner.
Paul Kyle Peekay Rehua, a prisoner at Auckland’s Mt Eden Corrections Facility, escaped while on a hospital escort on November 7. He wascaught yesterday.
Police and Corrections did not notify the public of the 42-year-old’s escape until four days after it happened, and took another two days to release his name.
Waitematā District Commander Superintendent Naila Hassan told Herald NOW’s Ryan Bridge there was “possibly” some miscommunication between police and Corrections that led to a delayed media release.
“I did speak to Corrections yesterday and quite often we will talk early on. It doesn’t appear that conversation took place between Corrections and Police in terms of this offender. So, we probably could have gone out to the media earlier.”
Paul Kyle Peekay Rehua escaped custody while on a hospital escort in Auckland. Photo / NZ Police
Hassan conceded that publicly releasing the information earlier could have led to Rehua being found faster.
“I think things could have been done differently and we’re always open to looking at what we did on this occasion and seeing if we could have done it better.”
Hassan said she has spoken with Corrections Commissioner Leigh Marsh about the handling of the escape.
She said Police and Corrections had conflicting information about the prisoner’s location “at that time and in the days following”.
“So, we decided to hold any media at that point. When there’s conflicting information, we can sometimes catch an offender a whole lot quicker.”
Once police obtained a warrant for his arrest, they decided to go to the media, she said.
“Sometimes it’s in the public interest for us to do a media release to locate him, other times it’s not. On this occasion, we did do a media release a few days later. Once we got the warrant, we did a media release and as it happened, the public information that came in helped us to locate him.”
She said although Rehua was in custody for two charges of doing an indecent act in a public space and did cause harm, he was not as significantly dangerous as other offenders police arrested while he was on the run.
“Last week, we apprehended a significant number of offenders who had drugs and loaded firearms on them.
“When we’re balancing up those demands against these, we’re always going to go, and I think the public of New Zealand would have an expectation, we’re going to focus on those most dangerous offenders.”
Police were immediately notified of the escape by Corrections, she said.
