Murderer and sex attacker escape prison

Stuart Harrison (L) and Sumit Narayan (R). Photos / Supplied

A convicted murderer and a violent sex attacker have escaped from Tongariro Rangipo Prison, near Turangi, in the central North Island.

Police said Stuart Martin Harrison and Sumit Carrik Narayan were both considered dangerous and should not be approached.

Harrison was last seen in the prison's Hautu unit about 7.50am today, police said. While police were investigating his disappearance they realised Narayan had also escaped.

Harrison is described as Maori, 175cm tall and with black, collar-length hair. Police said he was last seen wearing blue jeans a black cap or beanie, a dark jersey and a blue and white checked jacket.

Narayan is a 30-year-old Fijian Indian, 184cm tall, with a shaved head. It is not known what he was wearing when he escaped.

Narayan was convicted of aggravated robbery and unlawful sexual connection in 2002 after committing a series of brutal and degrading acts on a prostitute.

On November 12, 2000, he robbed one sex worker he had lured into his car on the pretext of giving him oral sex.

Later the same evening he picked up another woman and also robbed her. When she escaped from his car, he pulled her back by her hair at knifepoint.

He forced her to give him oral sex and performed various acts on her.

Harrison was found guilty in 2005, of murdering Punoua Harvey Tourangi during a March 2004 melee outside the Caltex service station in Papatoetoe.

Riot police who closed down an out-of-control party literally stumbled across the dying 22-year-old as they "herded" partygoers down the road.

The Crown claimed that Harrison "calmly" straddled the already injured man as he lay on the ground and thrust a large knife into his temple.

Police believe Harrison has connections in the Opotiki and Auckland areas.

Sightings of either man should be immediately reported to police.

Earlier this month, Jayden Conroy escaped from a work party at the prison, unlawfully taking a van from a house in Turangi.

Napier police caught him on July 16 only for him to escape again after a cell door at the police station was left open.

He was found four days later hiding under a bed at a house in the Napier suburb of Tamatea.

- NZHERALD STAFF