KEY POINTS:
Convicted Mt Maunganui pack rapist Peter McNamara has been granted parole, despite the emotional plea of his victim that he not be freed from jail.
McNamara was jailed in August 2005, after receiving a seven-year sentence for rape and three years for unlawful detention, to be served concurrently.
He was convicted for his part in an attack on a 20-year-old Mt Maunganui woman in 1989, an offence committed with former policemen Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum and Tauranga fireman Warren Graham Hales.
McNamara has always denied any offending.
The McNamara decision raises the prospect that Shipton and Schollum could also be freed from jail.
McNamara's time behind bars has been a controversial one. He managed to father a son while imprisoned, and was also mistakenly granted home detention without the victim being advised - a decision later reversed by the Parole Board.
Now McNamara has been told he will be freed next month, on parole but with special conditions including not contacting his victim and not giving interviews to anyone on his trial, sentence, conviction, appeal or parole.
Parole Board chairman Judge David Carruthers said the decision to release McNamara was not taken lightly, and the panel which considered his parole application took four weeks to reach a decision.
"The most important consideration for the board is community safety. By law, the board must decide that an offender does not pose an undue risk to the safety of the community before he or she can be released on parole," Judge Carruthers said.
McNamara's victim told the Herald the Parole Board had informed her of the legal issues members had had to consider.
"I feel the whole situation is just a joke. You sit in a courtroom and you listen to a sentencing and you think 'That was fair, that was justice', without even a consideration that the sentence the judge just made will be bastardised by letting him come out on parole at the first request."
In his report Judge Russell Callander, chairman of the panel which considered McNamara's parole, said the law also said offenders must not be detained any longer than was consistent with the safety of the community.
The board was satisfied McNamara posed no risk to the community, but it also had to consider the victim's wishes, Judge Callander said.
"She is opposed to his release at this point in his sentence. Her submissions must be given due weight and not sidelined ... "
Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman Garth McVicar said he understood the predicament the Parole Board had faced.
"The guy has shown no remorse, he's not sorry at all, but under the Parole Board legislation they have to release him ... the guy has been able to get away with flouting the law and has basically given a finger to the system and walked out."
PLEA
The victim's statement to the Parole Board:
(The judge) did not tell McNamara to go to jail for two and a half years for what he'd done: he told him to go to jail for seven years. The sentence had a process and was a measure of the crime committed and although I don't necessarily agree that he must serve the entire sentence - I do however feel very strongly that a grant of parole will vindicate him of a crime second only to murder, and give a message to the rest of serving inmates that parole will be granted ...
