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A Mongrel Mob patch
A Hawke's Bay woman has serious fears for her safety after learning a Mongrel Mob gang member who murdered her daughter will be allowed out of prison.
Sam Tehei will walk out of prison on a day release tomorrow, 25 years after he beat to death Colleen Burrows.
Burrows was just 16 when Tehei and a fellow Mongrel Mob member savagely kicked her to death and then ran over her in their car. When police found her she was unrecognisable.
Despite denying him parole in February the Parole Board says the next careful steps to freedom will now be taken, starting tomorrow with a five hour release into the Napier area with no prison guards and just an approved sponsor.
Burrows' mother, Ida Hawkins said: "Just out of the blue last week I'm told that this monster would be released for five hours."
Hawkins told ONE News she is "really terrified".
"I still fear for my life, even my children, my family. I mean he's involved in a gang," Hawkins said.
Tehei was sentenced to life behind bars, and while serving that sentence in Paremoremo Prison he got another 12 years added to his sentence for attempting to murder a gang prospect.
Controversially he received around $100,000 in compensation for abuse he received at the hands of prison officers.
Now Tehei is in Hawke's Bay Prison's minimum security wing.
According to the psychologist who reports to the Parole Board, Tehei continues to be a high risk of reoffending.
But the department says it is a carefully-planned release.
"Public safety is of paramount importance. And no prisoner would be granted temporary release if they were assessed as being an undue risk to the public," said Karen Petrie, Regional Manager, Department of Corrections.
And Kim Workman, from Rethinking Crime and Punishment, said: "People who have known him over the last 20 years tell me that there is absolutely no possibility that he would harm Mrs Hawkins or anyone else."
But a gang associate of Tehei has allegedly threatened Hawkins.
"He's stopped outside my mailbox. He's yelled out some obscene language and gang language at me."
In the past Tehei wrote a letter to Hawkins asking to meet her.
But she says she would "never ever want to meet that monster."
Corrections says details of Tehei's release remain confidential.