However, a Taser was never going to help Blessie.
The minute Tony Douglas Robertson was released from jail, an innocent person was going to be sexually abused or killed. Blessie was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the right time for this predator. No wonder his defence wanted his name suppressed. Just Google it and you will see Blessie had no chance.
He was so untrustworthy and devious, he was to be made to have an extended supervision order for 10 years.
He had been labelled "an ongoing threat to society" and was profiled as "a violent offender with poor impulse control" and "deviant sexual preferences".
Why was he even allowed loose on our streets?
Just months after being released from jail, where he had spent the previous eight years for assault on a little girl, he raped and killed a wife and mother. Then, to add insult to injury, he got name suppression so he could have a fair trial.
Well there's nothing fair about what he did.
Again the criminal gets protected while the victim is just dead.
Just like the teenager who stabbed Arun Kumar in the neck in a botched burglary.
Two teenagers entered the shop carrying a knife and a metal pole.
Lawyers for the pair said they had no intention of using them. Well, one of them did.
The younger one was found not guilty while the 14-year-old was found guilty of manslaughter in a trial that painted the pair as victims.
That's little comfort to Arun's family, who must survive now without their husband and father.
Family members of the older boy say he was brought up in drug houses and received a brain injury after being knocked down by a car when he was 8.
Family members of the younger boy say he was brought up in a violent household and his mother smoked and drank throughout her pregnancy with him.
Why are the families talking about it now? Maybe if these boys had the help they so obviously needed, another family would not be in mourning.
-Linda Hall is assistant editor at Hawke's Bay Today.
