Two sex offenders subject to a community based sentence or order attended the anti-mandate protest outside Parliament, Corrections have confirmed.
The protest at Parliament is in its seventeenth day on Thursday.
Police said earlier in the week there were reports of sexual assaults at the protest. Police urged anyone who’d been a victim of sexual assault to report it to them.
In a statement to 1News on Thursday a Corrections spokesperson said: "We have identified that a small number of people subject to a community based sentence or order with GPS monitoring have attended the protest during the last two weeks, with none in breach of their location or monitoring conditions."
"We continue to actively monitor the area to identify anyone subject to GPS monitoring who attends the protest."
The rest of Corrections statement reads:
"People serving community based sentences or orders must comply with any conditions imposed on them by the Court or New Zealand Parole Board. Corrections role is to monitor and manage an offender’s compliance with those conditions.
"We reviewed the conditions of those that we know have attended the protest and none were in breach of their location or monitoring conditions.
"Two of the people we identified attending the protest are subject to extended supervision orders for sex offending and again, we have no evidence that either of them were in breach of their location or monitoring conditions by attending. Both continue to be monitored 24/7 via GPS monitoring."
"While all people subject to an extended supervision order must comply with a standard condition not to associate with, or contact, a person under the age of 16 years (in accordance with section 107JA of the Parole Act 2002), being present at the same general location as children would not meet the threshold to constitute a breach of their conditions unless we had evidence they were having direct contact with children.
"However, the safety of the community is our top priority and where we can direct someone not to attend a specific location, we are doing so. This includes the two offenders above, along with a further seven offenders in the Wellington region who are subject to extended supervision orders for sexual offending.
"We have a Corrections staff member based in Police’s Major Operations Centre and we continue to actively share information with Police in the interests of public safety.
"Anyone who has been a victim of crime at the protest is urged to get in touch with Police."
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