KEY POINTS:
It began with a meeting in a shopping mall that, on reflection, may not have been a coincidence.
The attractive wife of a well-known career criminal introduced herself to young prison guard Daniel Te Maro, in Upper Hutt, some time in February 2005. "I'm *****," she said, asking if he was related to someone she knew.
Te Maro, his partner Sarah Chad and the woman chatted, swapped cellphone numbers and promised to catch up soon. "I wouldn't know why she wanted to keep in touch," Te Maro told police later.
He claimed in a statement, dated March 31, 2005, that he had no idea the woman was the wife of one of the prisoners he guarded at Rimutuka Prison. "A couple of days later she texted me, asking what I was up to."
Te Maro's involvement with the woman led to him being suspended in the recent Department of Corrections corruption inquiry.
Te Maro's statement paints a picture of an elaborate operation by the criminal couple to subvert the guard. If it had worked, according to the descriptions given to police by Te Maro, they would have created a useful pawn inside the prison.
"I ended up giving [the woman] my partner's cellphone number and they used to meet up and go out to lunch at least once that I knew of," Te Maro told the police. "[the woman] told my partner, Sarah Chad, that she was in need of a friend."
While Te Maro was at Rimutuka Prison working, the criminal's wife would meet Chad. She also looked after the couple's children while Chad collected Te Maro from work.
According to Te Maro, the relationship between the family and the woman quickly cemented. Te Maro said he wanted to get to know her because she "knew my family background". He visited her at the Riverside Tavern on a few occasions. "This was before I knew who she was," he wrote in his statement.
Te Maro and Chad helped the woman move house. "That's when she gave us a 32-inch Panasonic TV, a DVD player, [and] a Maxam sheath to go with the knife she had already given me. I am into hunting and she had given me this knife. It had an eight inch blade on it."
Te Maro thought the gift of the television odd, he said.
"Around the end of the first week of March, [the woman] texted me asking me to come into Wellington," his statement reads. "When I asked why she said she would tell me when I got into town."
Taylor gave directions to an alleyway between a carpark and a pub, shielded by apartments on both sides. Te Maro, according to his statement, parked at the carpark and waited, watching the woman as she came out of the apartments.
"She told me she had possible kidney cancer and she was in and out of Southern Cross Hospital. She didn't say anything about treatment. She told me she was out of contact with [her husband] and could I take a cellphone ... in to him."
Te Maro would later claim that this was the first time he knew there was a connection between the woman and the inmate he guarded.
Te Maro said the woman handed him a bag with a Nokia cellphone and a wad of $20 bills in it. He said when he saw the money, he closed the bag and handed it back to her, telling her he wouldn't do it and driving off. But the request didn't stop there. Te Maro told police the woman texted him the next day asking why he wouldn't take the phone in. "I remember I replied that if I got caught taking it in, I would lose my job and that's how I pay my bills and feed my family."
The woman started demanding the return of her property - including a cellphone which Te Maro denied he had taken. According to Te Maro's statement, the messages began to get "nasty". The woman began threatening him with a prison inspector, he claimed.
Then, she texted: "When we were in town my mate took a photo of me handing you money and ph." Te Maro told the police: "I deem this to be a threat also."
Eventually, the woman named a Mobil service station as where to return the property. Te Maro and Chad went together, and met a man who claimed a connection to the woman's husband. The television, DVD player and knife were handed over.
A police officer later asked Te Maro if he had ever taken contraband into the prison. "No," he replied.
For Te Maro, that was the end of the inquiry - until almost two years later when the Department of Corrections launched its inquiry into corruption and documents purporting to be further contact between Te Maro and agents of the woman's husband emerged. They include emails sent from an account in Te Maro's name in July - months after his statement to police - offering to return a cellphone belonging to the woman's husband.
Te Maro, who would not speak to the Herald on Sunday, is believed to have denied writing the emails. It is easy for anyone to set up a free email account in someone else's name, which Te Maro is believed to have insisted when questioned.
