KEY POINTS:
A 54-year-old unemployed man will appear in the Kaitaia District Court today after two young children were taken from their home on Sunday night following a domestic dispute.
The two infants, a 3-year-old boy and an 18-month-old girl, were found by police late on Monday night sound asleep at an address in the Whangarei suburb of Onerahi, about five minutes' drive from where they had been taken 24 hours earlier.
"They were in a beautiful, peaceful sleep," Whangarei detective Kelly Penney said. Both were unharmed and were reunited with their mother yesterday.
Police had earlier held fears for the children's safety because they said the man who took them away in his car had been distressed.
A 45-year-old man at the Onerahi house where the children were found was spoken to by police but will not be charged with any offence.
He is not a relative of the man now charged.
Far North police arrested the man walking on Matai Bay Rd, near Whatuwhiwhi in Doubtless Bay, yesterday after being alerted by a member of the public.
A highway patrol officer, helped by a Mangonui constable, took the man into custody without incident.
He is charged with breaching a protection order, assault with intent to wound and two charges of assault on a female.
The assault charges relate to the domestic incident on Sunday night at Onerahi involving the man, a woman and a teenage girl.
- NZPA
