A 33-year-old man who bolted as he was being walked by a jailer from the Kaitaia District Court to the police station next door on Tuesday afternoon was a free man for about an hour and a half before he was apprehended. And he reportedly told the arresting officer that he had "gapped it" because he had wanted a smoke.
"If he had asked we would have given him one in the sally port," another officer said yesterday.
The man, who had been remanded in custody on family harm charges, reportedly jumped a fence into a private property, then ran along the Tarawhateroa Stream bank before hiding in the stream itself. Senior Constable Alan Duncan and his dog Yawk tracked him along the stream bank to a point near Taaffe St, below Pompallier Catholic School, where the trail went cold.
He was subsequently seen in Puckey Ave, the old Pak'nSave carpark and Commerce St, before being apprehended in the old Warehouse carpark in Matthews' Ave.
He appeared before Judge John McDonald in the Kaitaia District Court again yesterday, and was again remanded in custody, police having opposed bail.