Child sex offender Daniel Livingstone, who went missing for more than a day after removing his GPS monitoring bracelet, has changed his plea to guilty for the offence.
Livingstone told Judge Chris Tuohy in the Hutt Valley District Court he had done a terrible thing and was trying to make things right.
He wanted to represent himself in court but Judge Tuohy appointed court lawyer Bryan Yeoman, who told the judge Livingstone had accepted his history and was trying to move on.
At the end of the hearing, the judge described Livingstone as very insightful in having changed his pleas to guilty - and said he had to be given credit for that.
The Upper Hutt man had been imprisoned for eight years for abducting, raping and threatening to kill a 10-year-old in 2006 and, on his release in 2014, was on an extended supervision order that restricted his movements.
He was originally in court today for a charge of unlawfully entering a property and pleaded guilty.
But he also changed his pleas to guilty for breaching an extended supervision order and failure to comply with his sentence by cutting his GPS anklet off.
Major police hunt
Daniel Livingstone Photo: NZ POLICE
Livingstone had been given an extended supervision order, which was to last for seven years, and had to be electronically monitored.
He was also issued with a cellphone that he had to keep charged at all times and answer any calls from probation officers.
But he sparked a major police hunt in August this year when he cut off his anklet and went on the run for about 36 hours.
A probation officer told the court they were first alerted to Livingstone tampering with his anklet at 2am on 6 August. Multiple attempts to contact him at his home were made, including visits by police, probation and parole officers, she said.
But it was not until 9am that police broke into the property, where Livingstone's tracking device was found on the kitchen floor alongside a pair of scissors, she said.
The probation officer said he had entered an empty Housing New Zealand property via a window, turned on a gas heater and spent the night sleeping on the floor.
The next day, about 12pm, he was woken by a neighbour who found him lying there.
He ran out the back door and leapt over neighbours' fences before the police caught him later that day at the Naenae Shopping Centre.
Judge Tuohy warned Livingstone that breaching his extended supervision order carried a maximum sentence of up to two years, which meant he could return to prison.
He was remanded in custody until 11 December for a probation report and sentencing.
