Police, as an organisation, has come out in support of the Mongrel Mob-led drug rehab programme awarded $2.75 million of government funding.
In a statement, Assistant Commissioner Sandy Venables said police supported the Ministry of Health's application for the funding from the Proceeds of Crime fund.
”Police recognises the need to work with different groups in our communities to develop lasting solutions that will reduce harm.... it is clear that the programme has strong support locally,” Venables said.
Her statement said the Hawke’s Bay Chaindog Community Methamphetamine Rehabilitation Initiative ‘Kahukura’ programme provided services to “hard to reach groups and the aims and outcomes of the programme set out to meet a number of challenges that are evident within the Hawke’s Bay environment”.
”Police does not currently have any involvement in the day-to-day running of the Kahukura programme. However, Police will present to each intake of participants on family harm through the victims’ perspective, with a key emphasis on healthy whānau relationships,” Venables said.
Police would have an ongoing role in supporting the management of offenders in the programme. This would include those who had been to the programme as part of their sentence and those attending the programme while on bail.
Asked how police felt about the involvement in the programme of the president of the Mongrel Mob Notorious chapter, Sonny Smith, Venables said “We will not be commenting on the fit of specific individuals”.
Numerous police officers spoken to by Stuff this week were stunned to learn of the programme and questioned whether it had been supported by police and local police staff as stated by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday.
The Kahukura programme serves to 10 participants over eight weeks on a marae in Central Hawke’s Bay.
The programme received $2.75 million over four years from the Proceeds of Crime fund.
Participants of the programme reside at Te Tapairu marae in Waipawa from July 5 to August 26. That is followed by several weeks of follow-up activities and six weeks of support, ending in late October.
The programme is run by H2R Research and Consulting Ltd. Its directors are Angie Wilkinson and Mongrel Mob leader Harry Tam.
On Tuesday Tam said his organisation had yet to receive any funding and “I don’t know what all the hoopdeha is about”.
He did not know when he would receive the funding and said “I’d like to know too”.
He would not comment further.
READ MORE
- Opposition blasts Government's funding for Mongrel Mob's rehab scheme but not Mike King's Gumboot Friday
- 'Truly sad day': Mike King says Ministry of Health has rejected Gumboot Friday funding pleas
The programme involves participants working on a “community garden” on the property of the president of the gang's ‘’Notorious’’ chapter.
The garden is on a Waipawa property that is home to Sonny Smith and his wife Mahinaarangi Smith, who is a programme facilitator.
The programme will see participants “working in the kai māra (community gardens) at [Smith’s address]”, exercising at a gym in Waipukurau, “morning walks along the Mataweka River”, “a fishing trip on a boat on the Napier harbour”, and attending Narcotics Anonymous in Hastings.
The Proceeds of Crime Fund uses the assets confiscated under the Proceeds of Crimes Act to fund “address organised crime harm and drug-related harm, test innovative solutions to complex issues relating to crime-related harm” and “enable agencies to build an evidence-based case of what works in addressing crime-related harm”.
In order to obtain funding an initiative must be approved by a panel consisting of senior representatives from the Ministry of Justice, Ara Poutama Aotearoa (Department of Corrections), Te Puni Kōkiri, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, New Zealand Police, The Treasury, Oranga Tamariki and the Chief Science Advisor.
The panel then makes recommendations to the Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and Minister of Justice, who determine which proposals should be approved and funded.
On Monday Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern defended the decision to fund the programme, saying it had been supported by the Ministry of Health, Corrections, Police, MSD “and the local Hawke’s Bay Police”.
She said the programme that ran briefly last year resulted in a “high compliance with court orders” and “showed signs of success”.
The Health Ministry, as lead agency, will be responsible for expenditure and reporting on progress for the next four years.
Sonny Smith was released on parole in January 2013, two years after he was sentenced to eight years' jail for wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
Smith, a lifelong Mongrel Mob member, was jailed in 2010 after he was found guilty of attacking a fellow senior gang member so badly that he suffered brain damage.
