Sensible Sentencing Trust founder Garth McVicar is stepping down from the organisation. Photo / Duncan Brown
Sensible Sentencing Trust founder Garth McVicar is stepping down from the organisation. Photo / Duncan Brown
The founder of the Sensible Sentencing Trust Garth Vicar is resigning from leading the organisation known for pushing "tough on crime" policies.
His decision comes as the trust struggles to gain the ear of government and months after McVicar praised police for shooting dead a mentally ill man.
But a trustee of the organisation says McVicar's exit - and that of his wife, Anne - is not a response to controversy.
Documents show McVicar and his wife met two months ago with trustees from the Sensible Sentencing Trust and its tax-deductible partner, the Sensible Sentencing Group Trust, and announced their intention to resign.
The meeting in May set aside 90 minutes for the McVicars to talk about their "intention to resign" and then, with others, to discuss the evolution of the trust from 2001.
A separate part of the meeting was set aside to consider electing someone to lead the organisation through a "formal handover" period.
Trustee Gil Elliott confirmed the McVicars would step down from the organisation at the end of the year.
A combination of family issues and dedicating almost 20 years to the trust lay behind the decision.
New Zealand's prison population is forecast to rise from around 10,000 people to around 15,000 people in the next decade.
Gil Elliot, whose daughter Sophie was murdered in 2008, said the change in leadership took the load from the shoulders of one person to a management team.
He said it posed challenges for the trust because McVicar was so closely associated with the organisation he had launched in 2001.
"Garth knows a hell of a lot of people in media and politics," said Elliot.
"The Sensible Sentencing Trust is not going to fall over. It is in good heart. It will be slightly different."
Elliot said the decision had nothing to do with comments made by McVicar in March when he congratulated police on Facebook for shooting dead a mentally ill man.
McVicar posted: "One less to clog the prisons! Congratulations to the New Zealand Police, our thoughts are with the officer who was forced to take this action to protect the public."
He has refused to resile from his comments.
McVicar's close friend and trust lawyer, David Garrett, also caused controversy with comments around prison suicide on a blog which had featured inmates sentenced under the "Three Strikes" law.
Sensible Sentencing Trust lawyer David Garrett labelled "callous" for comments on prison suicide.
reported a spike in prison suicides, Garrett wrote: "No one with half a brain cares if the kind of people featured on this blog under the title 'Meet a second striker' commit suicide in jail … and neither would you, if you cared a fig for their victims."
McVicar also admitted having "failed dismally" over the recent departure of a board member when it emerged two press releases with completely different messages had been prepared. One praised the board member while the other castigated him.
It comes as the Sensible Sentencing Trust struggles to engage with the Government as Minister of Justice Andrew Little pushes ahead with plans for criminal justice reform.
Little has praised work the trust has done raising the profile of victims but he referred to McVicar's comments about the police shooting as "loopy" and Garrett's about the inmate suicide as "callous".
The trust will be led by Leigh Woodman, who is a trustee of the Group Trust and its "National Victims Portfolio Manager". Woodman became involved after the murder of her daughter, Vanessa, who was 15.
Her profile on the trusts' website says: "Very early after her daughter's murder, Leigh turned to the SST because she believes there wasn't and still isn't any other organisation out there to provide the level of support and assistance required to aid the victims of these types of horrendous crimes."
Woodman's position as a trustee for SSGT and potential successor for McVicar with the SST would cause a clash with charity rules administered by the Department of Internal Affairs.
The SST does not have tax deductible status, unlike the SSGT. The two organisations are meant to be kept separate so as to allow SSGT to offer tax deductible status to donors.
Bulging prisons and projections forecasting increasing numbers of inmates have drawn focus on "tough on crime" policies introduced over the past 20 years, particularly bail law changes largely behind the increase in prisoner numbers.
Minister of Justice Andrew Little is set on criminal justice reform and lowering New Zealand's prison population.
Little's determination to pursue Labour's policy of reducing the prison population by 30 per cent in 15 years is at odds with the trust's demands for laws in which more people would be locked up for longer.
His approach was bolstered by a report from the Office of the Prime Minister's Chief Science Adviser.
The report published by Sir Peter Gluckman, whose term has just finished, found that "tough on crime" approaches had failed and only contributed to making New Zealand less safe.
Little has said the cuts would not only be through law changes - if any - but through long-term targeting of the causes of crime.
