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Stealing some perfume from a Rotorua shop was allegedly what brought an escaped prisoner back before the law.
Katikati forestry worker Richard John Harris had been on the run with his brother for nearly six weeks when he was alleged to have stolen perfume worth $60 from Farmers Trading Company in the sulphur city on December 27.
He and his brother Mark Harris, a 33-year-old orchard worker, were given leave from jail to attend a family tangi in November but failed to return to Waikeria Prison three days later as directed.
Richard Harris appeared briefly before Judge Thomas Ingram in Tauranga District Court today, charged with shoplifting and a subsequent assault on a police constable with intent to avoid arrest.
No pleas were entered and he was further remanded in custody for a week for a new status hearing. Further charges are expected to be laid.
Three days after police nabbed Richard Harris in Rotorua, they found his brother Mark hiding out in a house at Pongakawa, a rural area between Rotorua and Tauranga.
He, too, will reappear in the Tauranga court next week.
The brothers had been behind bars on remand on a raft of charges relating to a three-hour, high-speed police chase across the Waikato and Bay of Plenty in early October.
Joint counts include aggravated assault on police officers, theft, unlawfully getting into and taking a motor vehicle, failing to stop, reckless driving and resisting arrest.
A third co-offender involved in the chase, 29-year-old Rotorua man Douglas Morris, is also due before the court next Monday for a status hearing with the Harris brothers.
In addition, Morris faces unrelated charges over a Mt Maunganui burglary last September, during which he allegedly stole a late model Mercedes Benz motor vehicle and a funeral urn. He is accused of later attempting to extort money from a woman for the return of her father's ashes.
- NZPA
