By EUGENE BINGHAM political reporter
A Waipareira Trust offender rehabilitation programme was stopped after a number of incidents including the discovery of drugs and a samurai sword.
Answers to parliamentary questions raised by the Act party show the Department of Corrections became concerned about the residential programme and a number of incidents connected with it.
Some of the problems included:
* Drugs and a samurai sword were found in rooms at the residential centre.
* A woman was assaulted by three residents at a nearby party. Her associates later threw a Molotov cocktail at the centre.
* Residents were left unsupervised at a local swimming pool. Two left and got drunk.
"It was mutually agreed between the community probation service and Te Whanau O Waipareira that the programme would be stopped until the concerns had been addressed," Corrections Minister Matt Robson said in his written answer to Act's Rodney Hide.
The scheme is one of a number of Waipareira programmes to come under scrutiny since Act began making accusations about the running of the West Auckland-based trust under its former chief executive, John Tamihere, now Labour MP for the Maori seat of Hauraki.
Mr Robson said the rehabilitation programme, which catered for recently released prisoners and offenders with community-based sentences, was suspended in July last year.
The scheme began as a three-year pilot programme in 1996, and was extended with a two-year contract before last year's suspension.
The department has since agreed to restart the programme in June, although Mr Robson has asked for a review of the way it operates.
"What I'm asking is that the next programme be tightly monitored by the probation service," said Mr Robson.
The community probation service's general manager, Ann Clark, said her staff had worked with the trust to restructure the programme and ensure the problems did not recur.
Some of the other incidents included in the minister's answer were the discovery of a woman in the ceiling of one of the residents' rooms and several cases of residents disappearing.
Samurai sword find brings cut for Waipareira scheme
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