Prisoner's threats to child picked up in phone monitoring

The sentencing of man housed in Wanganui Prison to a further one year and three months in jail on Monday has closed the chapter on the harassment of a 13 year old girl by the prisoner, who is already serving time for violent offending.

“Wanganui Police received a complaint from the girl’s mother, who is the ex-partner of the prisoner, alleging that he had been threatening her daughter after their relationship ended. He had said to the girl that he would hurt her mother if they didn’t leave Wanganui, and she was considerably distressed by his threats,” says Central Regional Intelligence Manager Dave Alty.

“The introduction of telephone monitoring technology in 2008 to every prisoner payphone in New Zealand meant that we had a recording of the prisoners call, and could confirm that he had been making threats to the child. We acted immediately to have the victims phone number removed the prisoners approved calling list and passed the recording on to Police who were able to charge the man with threatening to kill. On Monday he was sentenced in Court and he received an additional one year and three months imprisonment.”

“The reality is that criminals don’t stop offending because they are in prison. The use of tools such as phone monitoring technology allow us to detect offending, ensure offenders face consequences for their actions by working with Police and other agencies where appropriate, and also provide recommendations to prison management about how to prevent offending from continuing to occur.”

“All calls are recorded and monitored on a random or targeted basis. Random monitoring means we can detect criminal activity that we don’t already know about, and targeted monitoring means where we suspect criminal activity is occurring we can confirm this or gather further information.”

Mr Alty says Corrections’ ability to monitor prisoners’ calls is vital in keeping the community safe.
“Phone monitoring means we can act quickly to investigate if the alleged offending has occurred, and have evidence to give to Police, which assists them laying charges. Prisoners continuing to offend from inside prison is the unfortunate reality when dealing with manipulative criminals, however we do everything we can to prevent it.”