Collins Comments – more power to the victim
(NB. This article was published in the NZ Herald)

Last week I received a letter from a very courageous woman.

Leigh Woodman is a victim of crime. In 1997 her beautiful 15-year-old daughter Vanessa was murdered in a brutal attack by a man named Nicholas Hawker.

Leigh describes what happened: “He cut her throat, strangled her with such force that had he not gone on to stab her 32 times, she would never have been able to speak again as he also destroyed her voice box. He then sexually assaulted her.

“Vanessa never knew this man and never stood a chance against such violence; she was not quite five-feet tall and weighed no more than a sack of potatoes.”

Leigh says her family’s lives were torn apart on that day and they have never known true peace and happiness again.

Hawker was found guilty of murder and sentenced to mandatory life imprisonment. But Leigh found out that mandatory life imprisonment meant he was eligible for parole after 10 years, and back in 1997 non-parole periods were very rarely imposed.

Since February 2007, the family has been before the Parole Board four times to make oral submissions and attended Hawker’s appeal to postpone his eligibility for parole at the High Court.

Leigh says that the family didn’t do this out of vengeance – they believed, if released from prison, Hawker would re-offend. “If I can do anything to save just one life,” Leigh says, “it will be worth all the pressure and stress this imposes.”

My heart goes out to Leigh and her family. They have endured what no family should ever have to endure.

Sadly, they are not alone. Throughout New Zealand, many families’ lives have been torn apart by random acts of violence.

Victims of crime tell me they feel let down by a system that seems to put greater emphasis on the rights of offenders than victims.

People expect safe communities, where they can walk the streets without the threat of violence or intimidation, where they can sleep at night knowing their families are safe in their homes, where there is respect for property, people and the law.

Making excuses for criminals sends a strong message that crime is OK. I do not understand is how you can tell someone whose life has been torn apart by crime that it is acceptable.

For every crime there are victims like Leigh and her family, and for justice to be truly done it must strive to bring peace and closure to those victims.

The public expects people who have broken the law to be punished. Punishment for serious crime in most cases should be harsh – anything less fails to acknowledge that victims of crime are never truly released from their sentences.

I don’t believe prison should be enjoyable. Prison should be an unpleasant experience so offenders do not want to return.

It is very important to give people the opportunity to turn their lives around. But pressure from those who advocate for the rights of criminals has resulted in too much focus on rehabilitating the prisoners who are least likely to be rehabilitated.

The Government’s three-strikes policy means first-time serious offenders will get the chance to mend their ways. But those that don’t heed the warnings will serve out maximum sentences without parole on their third strike.

Leigh Woodman believes the policy will “save innocent lives and in turn, put fewer families through the horror, trauma and agonising anguish we and many other families live with every day of our lives as it never goes away.

There is nothing we can do to take away the terrible pain of victims of crime. But there are things we can do to recognise that being a victim of crime is one of the most traumatic things a person, their family and their community can ever face.