A former Hawke's Bay man who stabbed his first wife, beat his second wife to death with a frozen dog roll, and killed his third partner, has been denied parole.
Malcolm Alan Francis was jailed for manslaughter in 1984 after he killed his Takapau-born wife, Janet Montgomery Francis, 39, inthe kitchen of their home in Walton Way, Flaxmere, on the night of October 14, 1983.
Medical evidence presented at that trial showed Francis beat her violently with a frozen dog roll, causing huge internal damage, bleeding and shock that led to her death.
He called an ambulance at 5.21am and after initially claiming his wife had fallen off a bike the previous day and been bitten by a dog, admitted he had hit her "as hard as I possibly could," and said: "I'm a murderer." He eventually told police he had rammed her in the stomach with the dog roll because she wouldn't get out of his way. He knew it had hurt, and after going to the toilet she returned to the lounge where she fell on her face, on the floor, he had said. He said he had tried to get her to go to bed, eventually dressed her in a nightie and because she was too drunk to move, left her watching TV and himself went to bed.
He was convicted of manslaughter and jailed for four years.
Francis had also previously stabbed his first wife, Francoise, in the neck with a pair of scissors when they lived in the UK in 1975, but she survived. In 2003 he was convicted of manslaughter after killing Wathanak Tea.
Her body has never been found but a High Court jury found him guilty after hearing blood was splattered around her Johnsonville flat. He was sentenced to 12 years' jail.
Francis, now aged 64, was seen by the New Zealand Parole Board on Tuesday to consider release on parole. The board declined to release him because it was satisfied that he still posed an undue risk to the safety of the community. He would be seen again in January for the setting of his release conditions following the end of his sentence in March.
At an earlier Parole Board hearing in 2010, Judge Peter Butler said Francis could not be released from prison as he continued to deny his offending against Tea.
