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A man has described the ease with which he faked his own death, but says living under a stolen identity came with its fair share of anxiety.
Bruce James Dale, 43, left behind his problems in his life in Auckland by taking on the identity of a dead baby, and initially struggled with the fear of being spotted by someone he knew in his new home town of Christchurch.
Police say 15 staff spent 160 hours looking for Dale after he abandoned his car at Port Waikato in 2002, but Dale claims he could have been traced easily if any real effort was made.
"You could do what I did in a week. The police stated that I went to extreme lengths. Well, they are going to think that because they want to make it sound as if they did their job properly," he told the Weekend Herald.
"It's not like I grew a beard or changed my hair or anything."
Dale was yesterday sentenced in the Christchurch District Court to two years and four months' jail for fraud that led to insurance payouts of $1.12 million to the family he left behind.
He took the identity of the dead child, Michael Francis Peach, from a gravesite before travelling south and was declared legally dead in 2004.
His deception was uncovered when he applied for a passport in January this year under his real name.
Judge Paul Kellar said it was not his place to make a moral judgment, but told Dale: "You must be aware that quite a number of people were profoundly affected by your disappearance".
His former wife, Sharon Behan-Kitto, said she was pleased Dale's "sick joke" had backfired, but Dale's lawyer Barry Hart pointed out Ms Behan-Kitto "has done very well out of this".
In Christchurch Dale bought houses, started a new business, made new friends and formed new romantic relationships.
Getting used to having a new name "took some doing. For a long time it was weird, but eventually you just get used to it.
"Every time time you walked into a shopping mall, you thought, `Am I going to see someone I know?' But eventually you just forget about it."
The court heard Dale was in debt and potentially facing jail when he fled.
Dale told the Weekend Herald he was "pretty seriously f***ed up" at the time. He had begun planning it a few months earlier after becoming separated from his wife.
"People do strange things when your life falls apart and alcohol is not the solution, shall we say.
"I didn't get on with my family particularly well. It would be 14 years, this year, since I had spoken to my mother. And my oldest brother is the same."
He missed his three children terribly. But he never thought to get in contact with people back home.
"As far as I was concerned, nobody cared. Nobody bothered looking for me. There wasn't one thing on the radio saying `have you seen this guy'."
Other missing person cases were all over the media.
"I had nothing."
