Blessie murder: Tougher laws possible, says John Key

Tony Robertson in court during the Blessie murder trial.

Inquiry into monitoring of Gotingco killer will include consideration of legislation change.

Kiwis would be aghast and deeply frustrated that Tony Douglas Robertson raped and murdered Blessie Gotingco soon after getting out of jail, Prime Minister John Key says - and he isn't ruling out new laws tougher than those just introduced.

Mr Key yesterday said it was possible the laws could have made Robertson subject to a Public Protection Order (PPO), keeping him housed on what was essentially prison grounds.

The law passed in December gave authorities more power to keep dangerous inmates away from the public and allowed Corrections to seek PPOs for offenders with histories of serious violence or sexual offending.

Mr Key said internal reviews by Corrections and the Probation Service had indicated they had done everything correctly in Robertson's case. "We are not doubting that but we'll kick the tyres on that," he said.

When setting the terms of reference for the inquiry, the Cabinet would consider broader issues around the case and whether there were any further law changes "which at least could be contemplated", Mr Key said.

Asked if harder laws were a likely outcome of the inquiry, he said: "It's possible."

"In the first instance, I want Cabinet to consider the terms of reference on Monday, and then ultimately we'll let it do its work ... but most people would sit there aghast with what's taken place and obviously deeply frustrated."

Setting conditions around releases of offenders back into the community could be a difficult balancing act, he said.

"A lot of people are released and set about on a lawful life, but in this case, Mr Robertson hasn't and it's had disastrous consequences."

This week Robertson lost name suppression, two months after being found guilty by a High Court jury of the murder of Mrs Gotingco.

Robertson is also a child sex offender and had just been released under the strictest possible conditions - including 10 years of GPS surveillance - when he killed her.

He was 18 when he kidnapped and molested a 5-year-old girl in Tauranga in 2005. He was jailed for eight years.

On his release from prison in December 2013, he breached his conditions twice in a few weeks and was deemed such a lasting danger he was to be monitored strictly for a decade, the maximum period of an extended order.

Robertson raped and murdered Mrs Gotingco three months after the supervision order was imposed but yet to be enforced.

On Wednesday, Corrections Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga announced an independent review of Corrections' monitoring of Robertson after his release from prison.

Mr Lotu-Iiga was seeking advice on what form the review would take and planned to discuss it at Monday's Cabinet meeting. He earlier said he was confident Corrections had done all it could and indicated the new powers now in place could have kept Robertson away from the public.