Taxes paying for runaways

Press, 28 January 1988, Page 1

Taxes paying for runaways

By

SUE LANCASTER

in Blenheim Some runaway children are getting their return trips by chartered plane at the taxpayers’ expense. Hiring a plane is sometimes the most economic and appropriate way to return runaways, according to the Social Welfare Department in Blenheim. “We are not just looking at air fares, we are talking about time factors and waiting around an airport with a child who doesn’t want to be there,” said the department’s assistant director of social services in Blenheim, Mr Mike Crennell.

A “bolshie” runaway would often threaten to jump off the ferry or out of a plane. A social worker or family home foster parent was employed to escort the children who had usually absconded from a department institution. They might have to wait in Blenheim

or Wellington for a connecting flight if a plane was not chartered. . Some of the runaways were quite violent young people, he said. “We are not karate experts or magicians.” Marlborough was a central point for runaway children heading north or south and the Picton police were competent at identifying them at the ferry terminal. The Blenheim police’s youth aid officer, Senior Constable Ralph Gillespie, said that Marlborough got its “fair share” of runaways because of its geographic location and its transport system. When the police found children who were missing they either arranged for their return fare on public transport at their parents’ cost, or passed them to the Social Welfare Department if they had been in their care or committed a crime.