Wellington - New Zealand police are fed up with their most wanted man, William Stewart, 47, who has had them on the run for more than three months, but they are getting even more tired of people who depict him as some kind of folk hero. Stewart - who dubbed himself "Billy the hunted one" when he carved his calling card on the table of a house he raided - has acquired a fan club on the Facebook social website, a range of T-shirts on an internet auction and a song which is a hit in South Island bars.
In fact, says Detective John Rae, "This guy is just a criminal and we are in the business of catching them and trying to prevent crime."
The first of five warrants for his arrest was issued in October when police said he had breached conditions of parole after he was released from prison three months earlier.
The hunt began in earnest on February 10 when he allegedly threatened with an iron bar a police officer who was trying to arrest him. He then disappeared into the Canterbury Plains, the largest area of flat land in the country, leading to the sparsely populated foothills of the Southern Alps.
Familiar with the territory and experienced in the bush, Stewart has mounted a one-man crime spree since then, stealing four-wheel drive vehicles from farms, which he exchanges frequently, and breaking into homes and stores for provisions.
He is thought to have a stolen radio scanner, so monitors the movements of searching police and keeps one step ahead of them.
Police believe he has at least two shotguns, say he is known to be violent and may be a drug addict.
They advise people not to approach him but are appalled at evidence that some people have known where he was camped out but did not tell them.
Ashburton property developer Barry Toneycliffe, who created a "Where's Billy" T-shirt listing the locations of reported sightings, told a reporter, "It is kind of funny the way he keeps slipping away from the police."
Abattoir slaughterman Robbie Robertson wrote a song called Billy the Hunted One, which he sang in Timaru pubs, telling his local newspaper, "He's a bit of a legend in this place at the moment and he's obviously got a lot of followers out there."
The Timaru Herald said Stewart's former girlfriend had said that during their relationship he beat her repeatedly, stabbed her, tried to suffocate her, broke her nose, hacked her hair off with a knife and put her in hospital.
"I want people to know how dangerous he is," she said. "He's put me in hospital quite a few times."
She was the victim of the crimes for which he was jailed for three years and three months, before he was released on parole in August last year.
