Parole board reserves decision on Ewen Macdonald

Ewen Macdonald was jailed for five years after pleading guilty to a number of offences. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Parole Board has just announced that it has reserved its decision on Ewen Macdonald's bid for freedom.

Macdonald went before the board in Christchurch today, the fourth time he has sought an early release.

A statement from the board this afternoon said its decision would be released "in due course".

Macdonald was in 2012 acquitted of the murder of his brother-in-law Scott Guy, but was later jailed for five years after earlier admitting a string of offences, including vandalism and arson.

Macdonald has been in custody since April 2011 and will be automatically released in April next year if he's not granted parole.

His first appearance before the board was in Manawatu Prison in late 2012. The next three have been in Christchurch.

The board said in its most recent decision, in November last year, that Macdonald's "significant personality disturbance" made him an undue risk to the community.

He pleaded guilty to six charges, including vandalism of a new house that Scott Guy and and his wife Kylee were building, the slaughter of 19 calves with hammer blows to their heads, the theft and killing of two trophy stags, emptying a neighbour's main milk vat of about 16,000 litres of milk worth tens of thousands of dollars, and burning down a 110-year-old whare.

His sentence is due to end on April 6, 2016.