Phillip Smith faces fresh charges
Convicted murderer, paedophile and kidnapper to be charged with escaping custody and deceptively gaining a travel document.
Convicted murderer, paedophile and kidnapper Phillip Smith will face several new charges in the Auckland District Court this morning.
When he appears via video link from his cell in Auckland Prison at Paremoremo, he will be charged with escaping custody and deceptively gaining a travel document, which is an offence under the Passport Act.
The charges relate to Mr Smith absconding from New Zealand on November 6 while on a three-day release from Spring Hill prison in Waikato.
He travelled with a passport using his birth name, Traynor, which he’d managed to get issued while in prison.
When departing the country from Auckland Airport, Mr Smith declared that he had over $10,000 in cash, probably either the proceeds from an importation business he secretly ran from prison or some of the almost $50,000 in Working for Families credits, and student loan and income tax refunds he’d fraudulently claimed from IRD during his incarceration.
Mr Smith flew to Chile (affording the Prime Minister the opportunity to try out some edgy new stand-up material) and then Brazil, where he was detained in Rio de Janeiro on 13 November.
Police returned Mr Smith to New Zealand on November 29 and he was incarcerated at the maximum security Auckland Prison, rather than the medium security Spring Hill, because authorities had belatedly concluded he represented a flight risk.
Mr Smith then reportedly went on a hunger strike, complaining that he had been robbed of his dignity, as well as his hairpiece, glasses and clothes, and was not allowed a TV, books or toilet in his cell.
An internal Corrections review into how Mr Smith managed to flee the country and why he’d been allowed on a three-day release in the first place, was released on 25 November, which proved a bumper day for controversial reports.
The review found his escape was the result of systemic failures and made 13 recommendations to improve the temporary release process, all of which Corrections will adopt.
There is also a multi-agency government inquiry under way, presided over by retired High Court judge John Priestley QC.
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Phillip Smith faces fresh charges
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