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Archived Press Releases 2004 16th May 2004

Land Mark Court Action Seeks to Make Legal History

(16th May 2004)

The Sensible Sentencing Trust believe history will be made and Victim’s Rights will take a huge step forward if a court action that begins in the Auckland High Court on Monday is given the green light.

Mary Hobson was one of three people brutally murdered in the Mount Wellington-Panmure RSA killings. Her husband Tai is bringing a landmark Court action against the Attorney General, alleging the Crown were negligent in their management of William Bell who was on parole at the time he committed the atrocities. The Crown will attempt to have the case thrown out.

The National Spokesman for the Sensible Sentencing Trust said this case is about the rights of victims to seek redress from a faceless bureaucracy, to bring to account those who have introduced ridiculous parole legislation that has allowed criminals like Bell and many others to commit these heinous crimes.

We believe the Government has been warned said Mr McVicar. The referendum Norm Withers initiated calling for a better deal for victims, harsher sentences for violent crime and a reform of the New Zealand justice system was supported by 92 percent of voters in the 1999 general election.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust has been calling for parole to be abolished for all violent criminals for three years now. Mr McVicar said if that call had been heeded, the RSA killings could not have happened. The Napier City Council recently put their weight behind the abolish parole campaign, and wrote to Justice Minister Phil Goff expressing concern about the parole laws.

Most New Zealanders will remember the Attorney General, Margaret Wilson paying $240,000 to three criminals who alleged they had been beaten while in prison. That allegation was not even allowed to go to court; and yet the money was paid out.

More recently in a High Court trial in Wellington it was ruled that a number of violent criminals, including a murderer, could sue the Corrections Department for damages for mistreatment while in prison.

Mr McVicar believes the Crown are caught between a rock and a hard place; while paying out thousands of dollars of taxpayer’s money to violent criminals, the same Crown has now decided that a genuine case by a grieving husband should be thrown out of Court.

This case is about common sense, accountability and responsibility. Mr McVicar said the Sensible Sentencing Trust believe that every decent, law abiding, tax paying New Zealander will be 100 percent behind Tai Hobson in this action.

Regards,

Garth McVicar
National Spokesperson,
Sensible Sentencing Trust.