Editorial: We need people who reach out

Stewart Murray Wilson is back in this house on the grounds of Whanganui Prison.PHOTO/BEVAN CONLEY

To almost all of us (and rightly so), the Beast of Blenheim is a hideous criminal who needs to pay for his crimes.

Stewart Murray Wilson, 67, was jailed in 1996 for 21 years for serious sexual and violent offending against women and children, involving cruelty to children, stupefying adults and bestiality. He was paroled in December to a house in the grounds of Whanganui prison where he will certainly spend the rest of his life. It is probably not much of a life, but then again most would say he does not deserve much more and anyway if he was in some states in America, he would have been executed a long time ago.

While I seriously don't believe someone like Wilson will ever be rehabilitated, I cannot say a bad word about Pat Magill, who has been visiting Wilson for years and this week called on people to visit him and become his friend. Mr Magill is well known in Napier as a Justice of the Peace and "community mayor". He is also one of those people who believes everyone deserves a second chance, even someone as vile as Wilson.

I am not so sure about that and I reckon he will not have many takers to befriend Wilson. Aside from my journalistic curiosity, I certainly would not want anything to do with Wilson. However, society needs people like Mr Magill. We need people in our communities who reach out to people who do not deserve it, because who decides who is worthy or not anyway?

The easy retort is that Mr Magill is not going to visit Wilson's victims, so why does this sex offender deserve special treatment? Nothing will ever make right the wrongs against his victims.

However, I would rather live in a world where people like Pat Magill reach out to the unreachable (as long as they cannot re-offend), than a cruel, heartless world where anyone can be shunned at a whim.