KEY POINTS:
The Sensible Sentencing Trust and a victim of Graeme Burton's violent rampage have hit out at Corrections and the Parole Board over reports into the case, describing them as a whitewash.
Trust spokesman Garth McVicar said the agencies' "bureaucratic drivel" paid lip service to the issue which had
cost Karl Kuchenbecker his life.
The reports were "littered from start to finish with...waffling and cover-ups, phrases that mean nothing, do nothing and achieve nothing," he said.
"The one smidgen of hope (the family) had was that somewhere, someone may have had a bit of integrity and a bit of honesty.
"This hope is now gone and the family are left devastated by the whitewash and cover up of their son's murder."
Parole was a failed experiment which should abolished immediately, he added.
A third report from the Corrections Department issued today also said Burton's parole had been dealt with properly.
"The Department's investigation into the management of Graeme Burton, while he was on parole, has found that Corrections policies and processes were followed", Corrections Chief Executive Barry Matthews said.
"Some things could have been done faster. However, I don't believe this had any impact on the final outcome. Overall his parole was well managed."
A man attacked by Burton said the Parole Board failed in its duty to protect the public by releasing the killer and rejects the board's review backing its decision.
Nick Rae was attacked by Burton in the hills above Lower Hutt, during a rampage in which Burton killed Mr Kuchenbecker in January.
He said today he strongly rejected the just released Parole Board's internal review, which found the board was correct in its decision to release Burton.
By releasing Burton the Parole Board had failed in its primary duty to protect the community from undue risk, he told Radio New Zealand.
The board ignored information that Burton was facing allegations of serious assault in jail, Mr Rae said. And, even with the allegations aside, a psychologist had warned the board Burton was at medium to high risk of violent reoffending.
"I don't understand how given that information that the Parole Board could have reasonably decided that he was sustainable for release," he said.
If something was not done to prevent the Parole Board from failing again, he would do what he could and keep asking questions, he said.
A review released overnight found the Parole Board should have delayed releasing Burton until allegations of assaults and standover tactics in jail had been clarified by the Department of Corrections.
Even if the board decided not to give weight to the unproven allegations it should have considered the psychologist's warning more fully, the review said.
National Party justice and corrections spokesman Simon Power said Burton's behaviour in prison showed he should not have been released but that information was not put to the Parole Board.
He said Corrections rather than the Parole Board was to blame. He said press releases about the report showed the cultural differences between the two organisations.
"The remarkable thing about the two reports this morning is that in the press release from the Parole Board releasing the independent inquiry they start by acknowledging the victims of this crime; the Corrections Department press release starts by congratulating itself on its own internal inquiry finding it had done nothing wrong.
"I think that says a mountain of things about the different cultures of those two different organisations."
Mr Power said he was worried that the public would not have confidence in the reports because there was no reason to believe the release was reasonable.
He said the Criminal Law Reform Bill before a Parliamentary committee needed to consider the case and ensure that repeat violent offenders did not get parole -- a National Party policy.
Chairman of the Parole Board Judge David Carruthers said he was pleased with the review's overall findings.
"It's easy to look back at this in agony afterwards and think 'what could have been done, what could have been seen', but I agree with the review that on the information available it was a reasonable and responsible decision," he said
- NZPA, NZHERALD STAFF
