Editorial: Compassionate sentence was spot on

Andrew Austin, Editor of Hawke's Bay Today.

Unfortunately nowadays it is fairly common for there to be an outcry over the perception that a criminal has been let off lightly by a lenient judge and that the justice system has failed once again.

Groups like Sensible Sentencing Trust and some political parties are often moaning that offenders are treated better than victims and that punishment in New Zealand is soft.

However, any reasonable person would not argue with the sentence Justice Helen Cull handed down in the High Court at Gisborne to 62-year-old Dean Cole of Mohaka this week.

Cole became the ninth person in New Zealand to avoid life imprisonment for murder, but was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment with a minimum term to be served of six years.
He had pleaded guilty in February to murdering his own son, Blair Cole, 42, last October.

Dean Cole shot his son in the chest once in an "execution-style" shooting from less than a metre and a half away, the court heard.

Defence counsel Susan Hughes QC successfully argued that following the legislation (revised in 2002), to sentence Dean Cole to life imprisonment, would be manifestly unjust.

She said Dean Cole had a serious, long-term mental illness and was provoked by his son who had for two decades had a reign over terror over his father and his family.

It is at times like this that one realises why only the best legal minds become judges. On the one hand a life has been taken in cold blood and there should be some punishment for that.

But, on the other hand, the perpetrator was a victim of the murdered person and also had mental health issues.

Compassion was needed and that is what was served.