Ex-wife: Keep death faker in jail

Bruce Dale will face the Parole Board this month. Photo / Supplied

The former wife of a man who faked his own death is strongly opposed to him being released from jail, saying it will further damage the children he abandoned.

Bruce James Dale was jailed in September last year after making it appear he had drowned at Port Waikato in 2002, and fleeing his life in Auckland to start a life under a new identity in Christchurch.

He will face the Parole Board this month.

Dale took on the identity of a dead child, Michael Francis Peach, from a gravesite before travelling south, and was declared legally dead in 2004, allowing $1.12 million in life insurance to be paid out to the family he left behind.

His deception was uncovered when he applied for a passport in January last year under his real name. He was sentenced to two years and four months' jail.

Dale told the Herald at the time of his sentencing that his life had fallen apart when he committed his crimes, but police could have easily found him if they had made a proper effort.

"It's not like I grew a beard or changed my hair or anything."

When Dale fled Auckland he left behind his then wife, Sharon Behan-Kitto, and their two sons.

Mrs Behan-Kitto said it had been very hard on her children thinking their father was dead, and then finding out he was alive and had left them. She said she felt strongly that Dale should not be released on parole, and her sons, aged 14 and 10, felt the same way.

"We have managed just to get the kids back on track again, and ... it will break the kids if he gets let out. They don't want him in their lives.

"He wouldn't have learnt his lesson. He might lie low for a few months, but he'll be scheming something else, I would imagine."

Dale was denied early release when he appeared before the Parole Board in March. He told the board then he felt he should be released because he was a better man.

But the board said it still saw signs of manipulative tendencies and it would revisit the question of parole this month, when a psychologist's report would be available.