Peter Joseph Holdem on the day of his arrest. Photo / File
Aynsley Harwood has been asked three times if she would like to speak to the man who murdered her young daughter Louisa more than 30 years ago.
Each time she has refused.
Harwood has no intention of ever coming face to face with serial sex offender Peter Joseph Holdem, who abducted her 6-year-old daughter Louisa Damodran in a Christchurch street in October 1985 and killed her.
Holdem, now in his mid 60s, has again been refused parole for the murder that rocked New Zealand. He was jailed in 1986 and is serving a life sentence.
He came before the Parole Board last month. But the hearing had to be adjourned because the board had not received a private psychological report.
Holdem was first eligible for parole in October 1996 and has been refused every time he has appeared before the board.
This time he did not seek to be released. But even if he did, it appears he would have been unsuccessful.
Board chairman Sir Ron Young said: "Currently he remains an undue risk. We will see him again in 18 months' time, by the end of November 2021, with hope that he has been able to progress."
Sir Ron said Holdem knew he had "significant work" to do.
Harwood and Mal Griebel, the retired police detective who headed the murder investigation, agree he is still a risk.
"He's always going to kill children. At the end of the day it's the Parole Board's decision (if Holdem is to be released). But if he is ever to be rehabilitated, he will have to do a child sex offenders course," Harwood said.
The board was given details of when Holdem was last considered for parole in 2017.
"He was then said to have been at high risk of violence and sex offending given he had completed group programmes and one-on-one programmes with relatively little progress," said Sir Ron.
"It was suggested then that he could be considered for the Child Sex Offender Treatment Programme."
Griebel also thinks Holdem would kill again if he was released.
"There is no doubt about that. I don't know what treatment he has had but he is not worth the risk. Whatever the psychiatrists and psychologists say, they can't guarantee he won't kill again."
Griebel said he still had nightmares about the case.
Harwood said she had been asked three times if she would want to speak to Holdem.
"I said 'no'. I wouldn't want to do that."
Holdem was a prolific petty criminal, and child sex offender, before he murdered Louisa, who was days from her seventh birthday. She would now have been be 40.
He had a history of stalking children before convincing them to go with him, at times on his bike. He would say their mothers had said he was able to take them to see his pet rabbits.
In Louisa's case, she was walking home from school in Bromley when she was either snatched by Holdem or coerced into his car. She was just 100m from her house.
He drove her to the Waimakariri River, throttled her and then threw her into the river where she drowned. Her body was found downstream three weeks later.
At the time of the murder Holdem was on parole for the 1982 attempted rape of a 10-year-old. He has a history of sex attacks on children dating back to the 1970s.
In 2007, The Star led a public campaign to keep Holdem in jail before he was due to appear before the Parole Board.
He wasn't released and the board took the step of cancelling his parole hearings for the next three years.
In 2012, the Louisa Damodran case featured in high-profile psychologist Nigel Latta's TV series Beyond the Darklands.
Latta concluded Holdem should never be released from prison.
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