Police criticised for breath-testing at home

Breath testing doesn't just happen on the roadside. File picture / Glenn Jeffrey

Police have come under fire for breath-testing people at home to see if they're meeting their bail conditions.

A Taupo man was arrested at the weekend for breaching bail after being breath-tested at home. It was a condition of the man's bail that he not drink alcohol.

While police say the tactic is sometimes used to ensure people are sticking to their conditions, it has been criticised by Rotorua defence lawyer Harry Edward who says it is an intrusion into their privacy.

Senior Sergeant Tony Jeurissen said bail conditions needed to be taken seriously and police would continue to use the tactic.

The actions of the Taupo police have been backed by Rotorua police area commander Inspector Bruce Horne who said his staff also used the tactic from time to time.

Mr Horne said if people had certain conditions of bail, police would check them all. He said most times it would be obvious the person had drunk alcohol and therefore it would not be necessary to breath-test them.

"They might come to the door with a stubbie of beer in the hand, be clearly intoxicated or have a strong smell of alcohol on their breath. We don't ask for these conditions lightly. We are required to justify to the courts the reason we are seeking the condition."

Mr Horne said alcohol was often a factor in offending, particularly family violence, and police would check bail conditions if they were concerned the person was breaching them.

Mr Horne said Rotorua police had stepped up bail checks in recent years. He said there was evidence to show a reduction in crime when repeat offenders on bail were monitored closely by police.

Rotorua police staff do at least 300 bail checks a week and sometimes one person can be checked five times in a night.

"Sometimes people think we are harassing them but sometimes on the sixth check, they have taken off. They think police have been around five times and they are not likely to come back again. Our high risk offenders do really push the margins."

Mr Edward disagreed that police needed to go to such lengths.

"The imposition of bail conditions has increased dramatically over the last few years and in many cases completely unnecessarily so."

Mr Edward said the entire household was woken when police did night time bail checks.

"These households might have shift workers and young children living there."

Mr Edward said breath-testing people on bail who had the condition they were not to drink alcohol was taking bail checks to another level.

"If they are clearly intoxicated then yes... they might commit other offending. But in the absence of anything like that, one would think it is an intrusion into their personal privacy."

- DAILY POST (ROTORUA)