Alexander Patrick RYAN - 14/05/2020

Parole Hearing

Under section 21(2) of the Parole Act 2002

Alexander Patrick RYAN

Hearing: 14 May 2020

at Spring Hill Corrections Facility via VMR from NZ Parole Board, Head Office Wellington

Members of the Board:

Sir Ron Young – Chairperson

Assoc Prof. P Brinded

Dr G Coyle

Counsel: Mr D Allan

DECISION OF THE BOARD

  1. Mr Ryan is 50 years of age.  He was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in 2007.  He was first imprisoned in 2007.  He had previous convictions for driving, unlawful possession of drugs and some violence although none were especially serious offences.
  2. We saw him last in May 2018.  At that stage, he had had a number of misconducts in prison. There was concern about his consumption of drugs and alcohol and its relevance to his offending.
  3. He completed the MIRP in 2012 and was in the middle of doing the DTP at that stage.  He still had some aggressive and violent conduct within prison.  The possibility was mentioned then that he would complete the STURP programme or if he had not obtained an override, then one-on-one psychological counselling.
  4. As to the current position, Mr Ryan’s conduct within the prison has significantly improved and no criticism is made of it during the last six to nine months.  Rather than complete the STURP programme, Mr Ryan has done eight one-on-one sessions with a psychologist.  He also completed the DTP in June 2018 after we last saw him.  Mr Ryan spoke very highly of the work he had done with the psychologist.  Although there may be some reason to be concerned about eight one-on-one sessions in someway being the equivalent of the STURP programme, it seems to us that the issue of Mr Ryan’s rehabilitation has been thoroughly discussed and considered and it is now felt that all of the rehabilitation necessary has been completed.
  5. In those circumstances, Mr Ryan now shifts to reintegration.  We noted in our last decision that Mr Ryan had been turned down for the more liberal regimes of self-care and work outside the wire.  For perfectly understandable reasons, he asked and we in turn asked Corrections for them to tell Mr Ryan why he had been rejected in his application to go to that more liberal reintegration regime.  It seems to us only fair that Mr Ryan is told why he has not been approved so that he can address whatever inadequacies there may be in his application.
  6. We consider Mr Ryan is a very thoughtful man and an obviously intelligent man. He  has already himself prepared what seems to be an excellent safety plan.  We encourage Corrections, therefore to work with Mr Ryan on reintegration.  In the meantime, he remains an undue risk.  We will see him again by the end of April 2021.

Sir Ron Young

Chairperson