KEY POINTS:
A murderer was paroled to live next door to the daughter of the woman he killed.
In the latest blunder by the Parole Board and the Corrections Department, the killer spent up to a month living beside the daughter in Hamilton after his release this year.
The daughter
was a child when her mother was slain in front of her in 1992, and she did not recognise the man when he moved next door.
Her family had told the board they feared he would stalk them when he got out of jail.
They believed he was not to be released within a 50km radius of the woman or her family.
But the daughter's flatmate realised who he was, and he was moved by Corrections.
However, he has been allowed to stay in Hamilton.
The daughter, now 21 and a Waikato University student, asked not to be identified because she fears for her safety.
She also asked that the murderer not be identified, in case it provoked him to look for her and her three siblings, all now adults, who were made orphans by his crime.
"My nightmares had gone away, but this has started them again," she told the Weekend Herald. "These are not ordinary bad dreams, they are heart-pounding, cold sweat and waking up in fear nightmares."
She has moved out of her home, and is demanding the killer be moved away from Hamilton.
But Corrections says it cannot now do this, because it would infringe the man's rights.
The murderer was her widowed mother's ex-boyfriend.
He was angry when their relationship ended and had been threatening for some time to kill her before he armed himself with a shotgun and knife and hid in the attic of their Gisborne home.
He stabbed the mother, a music teacher, several times and shot at a boarder who came to her aid.
The daughter, then 6, and her sister, 9, ran to a neighbour to get help.
The family have campaigned to keep the murderer in jail or away from them on his release.
"Can the authorities not see that what this guy did meant that me and my brothers and sister had to be raised separately and could not grow up together?" the daughter said.
"He is cunning and he is evil and we are afraid of him."
Corrections Minister Phil Goff said the murderer's placement was "unacceptable", but he would not comment when asked what the Government would do to stop such breakdowns happening again.
The murderer was paroled on January 31, but the family were not told his location to protect his privacy.
The daughter said the Parole Board had imposed conditions preventing him being released to areas near the two family members who appeared before it, but did not seek out the other family members.
She believed officials knew where she was because of her previous submissions, or could have made inquiries especially as her brother had told the hearing she was "particularly concerned at how he is motivated by revenge and may seek [her] out".
She was away when her flatmate made the connection, and her friends got the murderer moved without her knowledge, telling her only that he was in Hamilton.
Parole Board chairman Judge David Carruthers yesterday offered the daughter his "sincerest thoughts", but said management of offenders in the community was over to Corrections.
Corrections' community probation regional manager Heather Mackie said the department was sorry, but it was difficult to see what could have been done differently as it didn't know about the daughter.