KEY POINTS:
The Parole Board today refused mass murderer Raymond Wahia Ratima's latest bid for freedom noting that he was back on drugs.
Ratima killed seven people, including three of his own children, on a murderous rampage in Masterton in 1992.
The board said that at a parole hearing last year Ratima year presented himself as a disciplined and articulate man, who appeared to have overcome an earlier history of being an identified drug user.
"Sadly that has not been the case."
He had reverted to cannabis use, apparently blaming a death in his family.
The board said it would see him again in three months to consider a "postponement order" to give the families of victims relief from the annual round of parole hearings".
On June 25, 1992, Ratima, then aged 25, killed his sister-in-law Nicola Ferguson, Bevan Tepu, their child Stephen, Nicola's brother Phillip Ferguson junior, and his own children Piripi, Barney and Stacey.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment on seven charges of murder, 10 years' imprisonment for killing an unborn child and seven years' imprisonment for attempted murder..
When Ratima was sentenced in 1992 the judge urged the board to proceed "only with the greatest caution" when the question of parole came up.
- NZPA
