A pedophile with Australian and New Zealand citizenship is back in New Zealand and child advocacy groups are asking why.
Peter Dundas Walbran, 59, returned to New Zealand on Friday after being held in immigration detention cells in Bangkok since his December 9 arrest in the northeastern Thai town of Ubon Ratchthani, 600 kilometres away, where he taught at an international school.
The former head of the Australian International School in Jakarta was jailed in Indonesia in 2012 and served two years of a three-year jail term for the rape and molestation of Indonesian boys, some under the age of 10.
New Zealand police were notified of his impending return to New Zealand, a spokeswoman says.
Walbran was met by police when he arrived in New Zealand on Friday "as per our normal process for deportee arrivals", she said.
"The purpose of this was to obtain relevant information to assist in any necessary prevention tactics, as part of our focus on community safety."
Child Alert New Zealand chairwoman Sandy Thompson told Radio New Zealand it was shocking that after being deported to Australia last year, Walbran was able to get a New Zealand passport and land a job at a Thai school. Walbran has dual citizenship.
He's not covered by new New Zealand monitoring laws for deported criminals because he was not convicted of an offence in Thailand and it has been more than six months since he was released from jail in Indonesia.
Journalist and former ACT MP Deborah Coddington told Radio New Zealand she was sure New Zealand police would keep an eye on Walbran and he wouldn't be able to go underground because of the publicity the case had had.
Walbran failed to complete the registration process with Australia's National Child Offender Register before leaving the country using a New Zealand passport.
That enabled him to avoid Australian travel alerts for pedophilia convictions.
A Melbourne investigator, Glen Hulley, tracked Walbran to the Thai provincial international school where he had been working for the past eight months, overseeing children aged 12 to 17.
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