A Tauranga District Court Judge wants the Corrections Department's refusal to permit home detention in the Coromandel challenged in the High Court.

Judge Thomas Ingram is encouraging Paul Mabey QC to challenge a Department of Corrections claim that home detention in the Coromandel is technically ‘too hard'.

'For a long time I have held the view that it is patently unjust that the people of the Coromandel are unable to have access to home detention,” says Judge Ingram.

He says the department continues to claim it is technically unfeasible while the appropriate mobile phone technology is commercially available and suitable phone apps can be readily downloaded.

'In my view somebody should take them [the department] to the High Court and this just might be the right case to do so.”

The case he refers to is that of 40-year-old Stuart William Allan, from Waihi, who this week pleaded guilty to drugs charges, including possessing a methamphetamine precursor, possessing implements for manufacturing methamphetamine, possessing methamphetamine for supply and a pipe.

Because of an early guilty plea, rehabilitative steps taken and his supportive home environment, a home detention sentence is possible for Allan – though prosecutor for the Crown Nick Belton expressed reservations.

Judge Ingram believes it could be achieved with a GPS capable phone, a defined set of co-ordinates and a requirement for Allan to carry the phone at all times and for Corrections to have access to the phone.

He was critical of the department's constant inaction on the issue, when he had himself downloaded the apps.

'That would be sufficient in my view for home detention. We just require somebody to hold the department to account.”

Allan is currently living in a family environment in the lower Coromandel and had since found work.

After pleading guilty to the charges he was remanded on bail until December 2 with a probation report requested with a view to home detention.

Home detention is both a punitive and rehabilitation sentence. It requires an offender to remain at a suitable and approved residence at all times and be monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Offenders on home detention must also complete programmes designed to address the causes of their offending.

The sentence can address both the rehabilitation and re-integration needs of an offender, while placing restrictions on them such as being confined to a specific location, and special conditions such as electronic monitoring.

Home detention allows an offender to seek or maintain employment, complete a sentence of community work if imposed, access programmes to address their offending and maintain their family relationships.