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Suicide scene photos used by a prisoner to terrorise his former partner's family were released to him under the Official Information Act (OIA) due to a coroner's decision that those particular images did not need to be withheld.
Glen Dallas Goldberg, 38, was today sentenced to 20 months' jail for criminal harassment.
He was already serving six years for breaching protection orders and attempting to defeat the course of justice involving similar stalking activity.
In the latest offending Goldberg sent a flood of letters to his former partner's family from prison.
One to his ex-partner's mother included photographs taken by police of the scene where the mother's defacto husband killed himself, though they did not show the body itself.
The photos were obtained by Goldberg from the Ministry of Justice under the OIA .
They formed part of an inquest file held by the ministry on behalf of coroners, ministry special jurisdictions general manager Stuart White said.
"The coroner conducting the inquest decides what parts of a file are withheld and the remainder is a public record which the Ministry of Justice makes available on request on behalf of the coroner," he said.
Ministry staff did not decide which parts of a file were available to the public as this was a judicial decision for the coroner, he said.
The ministry had looked into the case and confirmed that staff followed the coroner's instructions, which were to withhold photographs of the deceased.
Ministry spokesman Tomas Kriha told NZPA Goldberg was entitled to use the OIA to request information, like anyone else.
The Corrections Department said at present it was limited in its ability to monitor mail sent by a prisoner.
Chief custodial officer Bryan McMurray said the Corrections Act allowed a prison manager to read a prisoner's mail if they believed there were reasonable grounds to suspect it may be used to threaten or intimidate, endanger safety or welfare, pose a threat to prison security or relate to the commission of an offence.
But an amendment to the act now before the house would remove the need to establish reasonable grounds.
"At present, prisoners can avoid the monitoring process by using other prisoners to send mail on their behalf," he said.
"As such, the department is limited in what we can do to monitor the mail sent by a prisoner.
"We work closely with both the police and our Crime Prevention teams to detect mail of a threatening nature," he said.
"Receiving any unwanted mail can be distressing, and I would encourage anyone who receives such items to bring the matter to our attention and we will take appropriate action."
Goldberg had been due for release from his existing prison term in September, but was sentenced in North Shore District Court today by Judge Lawrence Hinton to an additional 20 months.
Goldberg's crusade against the family began because he was not permitted access to his son, born 10 months before he was sentenced in December 2004.
- NZPA
