Mother supports life with no parole

The National Party's tough new policy on violent criminals - including life meaning life for the worst murderers - has today won favour with the mother of a Rotorua woman murdered in her Hilda St flat six years ago.
The National Party's parole policy, to be announced today, means repeat violent offenders will have to serve every day of their sentence if they have previously been convicted of a violent crime and sentenced to five or more years in prison.
Under the policy, a life sentence will literally mean life for murderers who already have violent records.
Val Burr, the mother of murdered pregnant Rotorua woman Tanya Burr, said she agreed with the National Party because murderers were of a different ilk.
Miss Burr was stabbed 15 times with a carving knife after 17-year-old John Wharekura knocked on the front door of her Hilda St flat asking to borrow a pen and paper. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
"If you've got a dog that kills sheep, then you shoot the dog because it's going to kill again," Mrs Burr said this morning.
She said although it would be sad for murderers' families to have them locked up until they died, it was the safest option.
"Why should anyone else put their life in their hands?"
The National Party says it will abolish parole for the worst repeat violent offenders but this will require a new $314 million prison to hold them and an extra $43 million a year to keep them there.
The "life means life" sentence could have been applied to high-profile offenders including RSA triple-killer William Duane Bell and samurai sword assailant and killer Antonie Dixon.
Both have been sentenced to lengthy non-parole periods and may not be released anyway, but National's policy would deny violent offenders like them any chance of freedom.
If a criminal sentenced to seven years for an aggravated robbery already has a serious violence conviction, they will serve the full seven years. Preventive detention - a jail sentence with no release date set - can be imposed on serious or repeat offenders. But parole is still available and National says that since 2002, five offenders sentenced to preventive detention have been released. Repeat robbers, repeat rapists and those who repeatedly commit violence within the home would not get parole.