Parole breaches common

By GREGG WYCHERLEY

Triple RSA killer William Duane Bell was just one of the many offenders guilty of breaching their parole conditions after being released from prison.

Figures released under the Official Information Act by the Corrections Department show that about 600 offenders of the around 2400 released last year, violated their parole conditions.

The Community Probation Service has been blamed for allowing overworked, and often demoralised and inexperienced staff to overlook the violations that should have had Bell recalled from freedom.

His actions are the latest in a list of errors that have resulting in paroled offenders committing murders.

Taffy Hotene murdered journalist Kylie Jones in June 2000, just two months after being released from a 12-year sentence for rape.

William Samson Holtz robbed and murdered 54-year-old liquor store owner Shiu Prasad on August 29, 2000, having been released from prison just three months earlier. He had a lengthy criminal record and a propensity for violence.

Nikora Allan Turner murdered his partner, Te Miringa Tipene, also known as Milly Dunn, in August 2000 after he had been paroled to her home.

Two weeks after Turner's release, Ms Dunn's family asked Turner's probation officer to recall him to prison after she was seen with black eyes, but he was given a second chance.

A Corrections Department spokesman said many of the breaches, unlike Bell's assault charge a month before the murders on December 10, 2001, were relatively minor.

"They may not have reported within 72 hours or they may not have informed a change of address or something like that.

"It doesn't mean they have been recalled or have seriously offended."

Bell was out of prison at the time of the murders after being paroled part-way through a five-year sentence for a violent robbery in 1997.

He said that had the system worked and Bell been recalled, it might not have prevented the RSA killings. "He would have been [recalled], but it's just a question of whether he would have been back inside before the murders were committed."

The department did not keep national records of recall applications and could not tell the Herald yesterday how many offenders had been recalled to serve out their sentences for parole breaches.

But the department's figures revealed it had exceeded its own guidelines concerning the number of offenders who had complied with their parole conditions.

Its latest annual report set a target guideline requiring "not less than" 65 per cent of offenders to meet their parole conditions.

Acting Corrections Minister Margaret Wilson said that "significant changes" had been made in procedures since Bell was released.

But Act MP Stephen Franks said the whole probation system needed to be reviewed, and he was writing to Prime Minister Helen Clark, urging her to appoint an independent commission of inquiry.