Middleton plans second bid for parliament

Mark Middleton plans to make a second bid for Parliament on a ticket of tougher jail sentences for criminals.

The 44-year-old has vowed to push for harsher penalties for "vicious scumbags," and said that he and his supporters planned to shake the judicial system.

"My supporters are going to shake this country. We are going to give it a good shake and we are going to get some things done. It is going to be a better community."

In the Auckland District Court on Friday, Middleton received a nine-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, after being convicted of threatening to kill Paul Dally.

Dally is in prison for raping and killing Middleton's stepdaughter, Karla Cardno, in 1989.

The Hutt Valley 13-year-old was snatched off her bike on her way home from school, tortured, raped and abused by Dally for 22 hours before being bludgeoned and then buried alive in a shallow grave on the Pencarrow coast.

Middleton stood for Parliament in the Whanganui electorate in 1999, and polled third with 3089 votes. At that time he campaigned to bring back the death penalty.

Last night he told the television programme 60 Minutes that he would like to see the return of the death penalty for some killers.

"I think some murders are so unforgivable. Look I've seen Paul Dally's handiwork - my baby was unrecognisable when I got her back and I can't even think to go there.

"It disturbs me to think that someone can do that to a child."

Although Middleton refused to expand on what he and his supporters planned during the next 12 months, he said he would use all his energy in the fight for a safer community.

"There are a whole range of issues. It is not just tougher issues that is going to fix this country. There are a whole range of issues right through Family Courts, right through the legal system, right through everything.

"They are obvious things which need to be done and unfortunately the politicians are not doing it."

Garth McVicar, who was one of the organisers of a nationwide protest outside courts around the country on Friday, said Middleton's supporters hoped to stand candidates at the next election on law and order tickets.

Attorney-General Margaret Wilson said the rallies outside courts during Middleton's sentencing were unacceptable in a society which respected the law.

Attempts to pressure judges went too far, she said.

"It is never acceptable in a free society to attempt, outside the courtroom, to influence judges in the way they perform their duty."