A Facebook page on which people post the locations of police checkpoints around Wanganui is "disappointing", a high-ranking officer says.
But Jeremy Cate, who started the "Wanganui Cop Watch" Facebook group on July 20, said it wasn't intended to condone drink-drivers but to "help protect those hard-working mums an dads that sometimes have to chose between a rego for the car or food for the kids".
The group has more than 690 members but, as of yesterday, no warnings posted about checkpoints. Mr Cate posted that was because old posts would be removed to avoid confusion.
He was not prepared to speak to the Chronicle about why he set up the page but said in a post on the site that it was doing what he hoped it would "for the resons [sic] outlined in my coment [sic] above".
Dozens of similar pages, with thousands of members, exist for many towns in New Zealand and overseas. Many of the pages state the aim is to prevent police "revenue gathering".