Victorian authorities are scrambling to locate at least eight alleged criminals after the collapse of a bail monitoring company. The company also operated in New South Wales, where more than 20 defendants on bail were using its ankle monitors.
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00:00It was billed as the private solution to the bail woes for the country's two biggest states.
00:09But today, bailsafe became a very public problem.
00:13Bailsafe's behaviour has been unacceptable.
00:15Complete with GPS tracking, the company sold an expensive alternative to being remanded in custody,
00:21meaning alleged criminals with the means to pay could wait for trial without being locked up.
00:27But last week, bailsafe quietly shut its doors and told no one, including police and the courts.
00:34The closure first came to light in New South Wales, days ago.
00:38The Victorian government admitting it only found out yesterday, after media inquiries.
00:43I just think the whole thing's quite staggering.
00:47If there's a specialist word, it's a schmuzzle. It really is bad.
00:51This afternoon, Victoria police revealed bailsafe had been monitoring eight people,
00:56but its founder, Jackson Oppie, claims that's not true.
00:59He told the ABC he wasn't monitoring anyone when he shut the company down.
01:03GPS tracking is often a condition of bail and has been more routinely used since March of last year by the courts,
01:13particularly in relation to serious youth crime.
01:16And it would appear that at least at the moment, there's no regulation for some of these providers.
01:20But while that didn't appear to be a problem this morning,
01:23The advice I have from Victoria police is that this has no impact on their responsibilities around the bail compliance checking.
01:32Late this afternoon, an 11th hour intervention.
01:35I am going to do something about that. We are going to put a stop to the use of these companies in these circumstances.
01:43New South Wales is also urgently reviewing the situation.
01:47The first job for the Victorian government, working out just how big a role private bail tracking services play.
01:54How many private bail companies are in use or operating in Victoria at the moment?
01:59Well, we know of bailsafe.