Graeme Burton: Convicted double-murderer

Two families who had relatives killed by criminals have asked a judge to let them prosecute police and the Corrections Department for failing to keep them safe. Karl Kuchenbecker was murdered by Graeme Burton in 2007 when he was on parole for an earlier murder. Debbie Ashton was killed in a head-on collision with disqualified driver Jonathan Allan Barclay, who was in the police witness protection programme. Barclay had previously been charged with driving offences, but under two different names. Burton later got preventive detention and Barclay was convicted of manslaughter and received 5 1/2 years’ jail.

Debbie’s mother Judy Ashton and Garth McVicar, of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, on behalf of the Kuchenbecker family, want to lay private prosecutions under the Health and Safety in Employment Act. They say police and Corrections staff, through their actions or inactions, allowed serious harm to come to others. Debbie’s mother Judy Ashton and Garth McVicar, of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, on behalf of the Kuchenbecker family, want to lay private prosecutions under the Health and Safety in Employment Act. They say police and Corrections staff, through their actions or inactions, allowed serious harm to come to others. The attempted prosecutions are out of time and require an extension by a judge.

Lawyer Nikki Pender told Wellington District Court judge Ian Mill yesterday that the prosecutions could not have been laid within time as a coroner’s report into Mr Kuchenbecker’s death and an independent police report were not available. The charges would allege systematic failures that led to Burton being at large when he killed Mr Kuchenbecker and injured four others, and Barclay being able to drive, leading to the collision that killed Miss Ashton.”High-risk parolees are still not supervised right,” she told the court.

Miss Pender said the Labour Department had already made it clear it was not going to prosecute, or even investigate, and the private prosecutions should now go ahead. Though the Crown cannot face the $250,000 fine liable if the prosecution was to succeed, it can pay reparation or compensation. Miss Pender said it would be unreasonable to penalise the applicants because they had not realised earlier that a Health and Safety prosecution could be taken. The judge had to decide if it was reasonable that the prosecutions could not have been laid earlier. Judge Mill will hear the Crown’s submissions next week.

Outside court, Judy Ashton said if her husband or an employee had issued a warrant of fitness for a faulty car which had then crashed, killing someone, they would be prosecuted and this case was no different. Mr Kuchenbecker’s father, Paul, said the public service had to be held accountable. “I feel that there’s two rules, one for us and one for them, and they’re not accountable for their . . . lack of action.”

Source: Dominion Post

This Weeks Reflections

• Victims’ families want to prosecute (News item)
• You can’t always predict future behaviour
• We always want to blame
• Restorative is more effective

1 Comment

denis stewart
Jul 30, 2010 13:19