Parole board fails three times to inform woman of hearings against stepfather who was rapist

The man was later found guilty of 14 counts, including six counts of rape. He was sentenced to 15 years and six months in prison, with a minimum non-parole period of eight years.

He was released on parole in January last year.

As a registered victim, Emma should have been informed of her hearing three months in advance so that she would have had time to submit a statement to the Committee.

She did not receive formal notification until December, and only after she had asked for it.

She managed to put together an application in time. Parole was denied.

Emma did not file a complaint as she assumed she would be properly notified in the future.

A second hearing for the rapist was scheduled for January 16 of this year.

Here too there was no notification.

On December 31, Emma was informed by an attorney connected to her family and familiar with the case that the hearing was approaching.

She enlisted the help of a victim advocate and attempted to contact the panel to obtain information.

There was no response until January 8, when the employees returned from vacation.

Emma was able to make a “rushed” submission.

Parole was denied. The board then investigated why Emma was not notified a second time.

It turns out that her notification letter was delivered to an old address.

“Basically, I fell through the cracks,” she said.

“I received a formal apology from the parole board for this and my contact details were basically tripled to ensure I would be contacted before the next hearing.”

The third parole hearing was scheduled for July 8.

Again, no notification was given. Emma learned of the hearing from the third-party lawyer.

“I learned this information at 5:30 p.m. on Monday and called the parole board,” she said.

“I was told that the hearing had taken place that day, that the perpetrator would be released pending deportation and that it was basically too late and there was nothing I could do.”

“They agreed to hear me that Thursday and to consider everything I had to say – but on the understanding that they would not change the decision unless I said something very significant.

“You heard me. You have not changed your mind.”

Emma accepted her stepfather’s release, but could not come to terms with the botched notifications.

“It’s a pretty terrible situation… it’s pretty bad,” she said.

“The fact that there were three different times and three different topics is ridiculous.”

After a second investigation, the board concluded that the cause was “human error” and again officially apologized to Emma.

“Essentially, it was concluded that an electronic copy of my notification letter was created, reviewed and finalized by a hearing manager,” Emma said.

“The next step in the process is for the hearing manager to email you and attach a copy of this letter.

“The step was never taken.

“Then they said that another check should have been done to make sure the letter was sent – ​​but it didn’t happen due to another human error.

“They said they have since implemented additional checks, which are also done manually, to make sure this doesn’t happen in the future – but it feels like the whole system is just fixes they came up with after finding a bug.”

Emma was angry that she had been passed over three times – and even angrier when she learned of other victims who had experienced the same thing before.

“That’s my biggest concern,” Emma said.

“I’m pretty tough. I can take it and I will fight back, but there are a lot of victims who would rather not go through this whole process of fighting for their rights after everything they’ve had to deal with.

“And I don’t want other people to feel like I did: ‘I missed my chance to speak my mind.’

“It’s a legal right to voice your opinion at a parole hearing. I just want the parole board to really, really understand the damage something like this can do to people.

“I want them to do it right in the future. I don’t want this to happen to other people.”

Parole Board Chairman Sir Ron Young and Prison Director Karyn McLean issued a joint statement on Emma’s notifications.

“We deeply regret what happened to this victim.

“The victim has every reason to feel abandoned and disappointed. We have apologized unreservedly and now repeat that apology again.”

Young said he would welcome the opportunity to meet Emma and apologize in person.

He also wanted to inform them that changes had been made to the notification process.

While part of the notification process was automated, “a number of manual steps were required.”

The errors in Emma’s notifications were “the result of human error in some of these steps.”

Young and McLean said work was “well underway” on “a new end-to-end digital solution that would automate many of these steps and provide greater certainty about getting the job done.”

“We expect this new system to be launched by the end of this year.

“We have now reviewed where we made mistakes in our processes and made changes to prevent what happened to this victim from happening again.”

Anna Leask is a Christchurch-based reporter covering national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for 18 years with a particular focus on family violence, child abuse, sexual violence, murder, mental health and youth crime. She writes, hosts and produces the award-winning podcast A moment of criminalityappears monthly on nzherald.co.nz