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Richard Lyall GENGE

Hearing:
01 September 2010a
at (Withheld) Prison

Members of the Board:
Judge DJ Carruthers
Judge RM Kean
Judge M Lee
Dr J Skipworth
Mr R Lewis
Ms J Donaldson

Observer:
Mr S Berry

Counsel:
(Withheld)

Support Persons:
(Withheld)
(Withheld)  
Richard Lyall Genge, aged 36, was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.  Associated with the murder was a rape.

There has been subsequent violent offending in prison.

Mr Genge is in the 16th of year of his sentence in prison.  He has had what can be kindly described as an uneven career in prison. 

He has a RoC*RoI of 0.73.  The latest psychological assessment assesses him as being at medium to high risk of reoffending sexually and at high risk of reoffending with violence.

It has in the past been recommended that he attend the Violence Prevention Unit.  Mr Genge has expressed himself in robust Anglo Saxon terms about that.

He says he is not interested.  That seems to be not quite the position in discussion today.  It changed a little from the original grounds.  Today he indicated to us that he did not think that the Violence Prevention Unit could produce anything satisfactory for him – he had seen others who had attended it and were simply ticking the boxes and that he thought he had gained as much if not more of value from the sessions he has had with (Withheld), a very well known bicultural therapist.

Today Mr Genge was supported by (Withheld) and by his counsel, (Withheld).  She tells us that her instructions are not to seek parole today but to ask that he be rescheduled in six months time to note then further progress which might have been made over that period and particularly to then consider an independent psychological report which Mr Genge is, with the help of his family, about to seek.

We understand that at least part of the reason for an independent report is so that an assessment can be undertaken of the quality and value of the interventions which Mr Genge has had through the good offices of his therapist (Withheld), over the period and to see what further work needs to be done.

Obviously that will be of interest to us.  Our experience, however, is that obtaining such a report from an independent psychologist always takes a great deal longer than anyone thinks possible, and we do not think six months is appropriate for that.

In the meantime, there is no clear proposal for release.  Mr Genge is described as being the risk set out in the psychological report and mentioned above.  There is a recommendation that next time he be assessed using the PCL SV measure.  We do support that.

Mr Genge does himself no favours at all by refusing to cooperate with Correctional psychologists.  If there is an absence of information because he will not cooperate with them that leaves us in a position where we cannot be satisfied about risk and if we are not satisfied then he will not be released.  There is an inevitability about that, which he needs to recognise.

Parole is declined today.  We will see him again in accordance with the statutory cycle.  We will see what progress can be made over the meantime.  He wants to get into the Self Care Units but cannot get below the security classification of low/medium.  We do not know what the prison rules are about that and we leave it to him and those supporting him to advocate for that change if it is at all possible.

When we next have a psychological report from Corrections’ psychologists we do seek a PCL SV assessment.

For now, parole declined.

(signed)
Judge DJ Carruthers
Panel Convenor

Review

•    You may apply for a review of the Board’s decision under section 67(1).  The only grounds under which you may make an application for review are that the Board, in making its decision:

a)    Failed to comply with procedures in the Parole Act 2002; or
b)    Made an error of law; or
c)    Failed to comply with Board policy resulting in unfairness to the offender; or
d)    Based its decision on erroneous or irrelevant information that was material to the decision reached; or
e)    Acted without jurisdiction.

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