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Canterbury police are blaming unwelcome North Island imports for a sharp rise in their crime statistics - with a one-man crimewave helping boosting burglary by more than 20 per cent.
Auckland man Paul Wayne Howard, who has also gone by the names of Dean Wayne Bradshaw, Antonio Paul Pryce and Dean Wayne Clydston, committed 70 South Island burglaries mostly at commercial premises in the last financial year.
"He could have done more, we don't know," Superintendent Sandra Manderson said.
Ms Manderson yesterday hit out at the northern influence as she defended a 5.2 per cent increase in recorded crime in the Canterbury district.
Household burglaries were down, but burglaries overall rose because of the increase in commercial burglaries.
Howard is due to be sentenced in court in December.
Ms Manderson said her district had also learned yesterday of another violent North Island criminal who had relocated to Christchurch, and would need to be monitored.
The issue of criminals from the North Island offending in Canterbury came up every day in her meetings with senior police staff, she said.
Ms Manderson has previously criticised the shifting of prison inmates from the North Island to Canterbury prisons, because when released they often stayed in Canterbury to commit more crimes.
"People I'm talking about find opportunities to offend wherever they are. It is substantial. They could be sent back to prisons near where they came from and then be released there. They are free to come [to Canterbury], I know that, but it is a question of when they are brought down here."
Assaults on police in Canterbury rose by 22.7 per cent, or by 39 offences, in 2006-07.
