Residents live in fear of crims

Angry people living close to a halfway house where serious sex offender Ivan Andrew Campbell fled from, want the institution to clean up its act.

Merivale residents say they are terrified of the type of convicted criminals which are paroled to the Salisbury Street Foundation home in St Albans St.

They also say it is wrong the foundation is located in the heart of suburban Christchurch and close to schools and childcare facilities.

Ivan Campbell, 46, and another foundation resident Jaydon Galland, 18, were caught by armed police near Arthurs Pass yesterday. They had been on the run since last Wednesday.

An associate Jamie Campbell was also caught by police and arrested for helping them escape. All three will appear in the district court today.

Ivan Campbell was paroled to the foundation in June after serving 11 years of a 14-year sentence for a sickening attack on a 14-year-old boy in 2001.
 

He chained him up in a wardrobe and abused him during a week of sadistic sex.

In 1996 he was jailed in Australia for nine years for arson attacks on a Salvation Army hostel for homeless men and the
devastation of the business centre of Beaudesert, southwest of Brisbane.

Merivale Precinct Society chairman Chris Aynsley said nearby residents were living in terror.

They will seek answers from Salisbury about its security because it was ``putting the community at risk''.

``There are some ghastly people that go there. The whole neighbourhood watch that facility like hawks. Residents are terrified.  If offenders can just walk out of this facility and into the community then it's putting us at risk,'' he said.

The foundation is a private trust which contracts its services to government agencies.

Said Mr Aynsley: ``It's terrible. There are 11 schools, churches, childcare facilities, a shopping centre and where this facility is, is right on a metro bus lines route in our area.''

Foundation director Lyn Voice did not return calls to The Star yesterday.

Parole Board spokesman Alistair Spierling said a hearing would be held to recall Ivan Campbell to prison for breaching
his parole conditions.

He would not comment on security issues at the foundation.

But a foundation board of  trustee member Professor Greg Newbold said the house, complete with 12 bedrooms upstairs, isn't a prison. Residents were under 24-hour supervision, he said.

``If someone wants to walk out, they are going to walk out. There's no fence. We have people buggering off from there all the time,'' he said.