Dangerous man escaped from Christchurch mental health facility

Photo: Geoff Sloan / File image

By Sam Sherwood of RNZ

A man who was missing for more than four hours last night had absconded from a mental health facility, RNZ understands.

Canterbury police

released a statement about 9pm on Thursday

, appealing for information about the 35-year-old who had absconded from the care of another agency.

Police had been notified about 6pm that the man was missing.

They said he was dangerous and shouldn't be approached.

The man was found about 10pm.

RNZ understands the man absconded from Hillmorton Hospital. He was found about 6km away from the mental health facility.

Health New Zealand has been approached for comment.

The incident comes three years after Hillmorton forensic mental health patient

Zakariye Mohamed Hussein

murdered Laisa Waka Tunidau as she walked home from work.

Hussein was on community leave at the time of the killing.

Two reviews were ordered, one into Hussein's care, and another looking at Canterbury District Mental Health Services.

In June another Hillmorton mental health patient,

Elliot Cameron was sentenced in the High Court

at Christchurch to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 10 years for murdering 83-year-old Frances Anne Phelps, known as Faye in October last year.

Following his sentencing a suppression order was lifted allowing media to report Cameron killed his brother Jeffrey Cameron in 1975.

A jury found him not guilty of murder by reason of insanity and he was detained as a special patient.

Cameron was made a voluntary patient at Hillmorton Hospital in 2016, and then in October last year murdered Phelps, striking her with an axe.

RNZ exclusively obtained emails from Cameron to his cousin Alan Cameron sent over more than a decade, detailing his concerns that he might kill again.

In response to the revelations, Chief Victims Advisor Ruth Money said it was hard to see Phelps' death as "anything other than preventable".

RNZ earlier revealed another case involving a man who was made a special patient under the Mental Health Act after his first killing was recently found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity for a second time, after killing someone he believed was possessed.

After that article, Money called for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into forensic mental health facilities.

After Cameron's first killing was revealed, Money said she stood by her recommendation.

"The public deserves an inquiry that can give actionable expert recommendations, as opposed to multiple coroners inquests and recommendations that do not have the same binding influence.

"The patients themselves, and the public will be best served by an independent inquiry, not another internal review that changes nothing."