The Cook Island Corrections Service is defending its decision to release a child sex offender into the Rarotonga community on work detail.
1 NEWS has been investigating how Andrew Marsters, convicted two years ago, is being allowed out with no formal supervision.
Over the years, Arorangi Prison has been at the centre of a string of serious failures. Now there are grave concerns over convicted child sex offender Andrew Marsters.
His cousin, Willie Marsters, and his wife Angela Purdy couldn't believe it when they saw him at another family member's property in September.
There was no prison officer or warden and two children were playing onsite.
Purdy says they think he's "very dangerous" to children when he's out of prison.
"When we spoke to police they told us he was out on work and he's allowed to visit three properties - in those properties they have children there," Willie Marsters says.
In a media release, Corrective Services say they signed off Andrew Marsters to work for his nephew away from prison one day a week.
They say in Cook Islands law, an inmate convicted of a serious crime can apply for day work release after serving 12 months.
In 2017, a damning independent inquiry into the prison found significant failures after an inmate allowed out of the jail killed the mother of his child, her partner and then himself.
The report found prisoners weren't controlled and recommended serious offenders should never be allowed out for work release programmes until the last year of their sentence.
One of those who led that inquiry, former Police Commissioner Tevai Matapo, is now a school principal and is horrified it's been ignored.
"Personally it's not on," he says.
"For one, charges are really serious like that. People have to be concerned not only for kids, but for the opportunities for this guy to reoffend... The safety of the public, the safety of young kids is paramount."
Clinical psychologist Barry Kirker, who's assessed high-risk prisoners, says this case raises major alarm bells, and releasing Andrew Marsters without professional assessment and treatment puts him at high risk of reoffending.
"Nobody should be released into the community without some sort of safety plan and that would always cover something like contact with children," he says.
Corrections say it's legal and the decision to release him was recommended by the prison superintendent and ticked off by the Corrective Services secretary.
They say the person who is responsible for Andrew Marsters when he's out on work detail is his nephew, a "mature married man", and that the inmate is subject to checks by a prison officer every Saturday that he works.
No details were given about how those checks are made, but sources say they have never seen a prison officer on site with him.
Corrections confirmed they received a complaint in August this year with regards to him being out of jail, but dismissed it.
Family members of the young victims told 1 NEWS they're finding this situation extremely distressing and disturbing.
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