Peter Joseph HOLDEM - 29/05/2020

Parole Hearing

Under section 21(2) of the Parole Act 2002

Peter Joseph HOLDEM

Hearing:                                            29 May 2020

at Whanganui Prison 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 R Chambers

DECISION OF THE BOARD

  1. Mr Holdem is 63 years of age and was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. He first came to prison in 1987. His current security classification is low although that involves an override from low/medium. He had five pages of sexual offending dishonesty and violent offending before he was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. We saw him last in May 2020. At that stage we had to adjourn the hearing because we had not received the private Psychological Report.
  2. Prior to that Mr Holdem was last seen by the Board in May 2017 when there was a three year postponement. He was then said to have been at high risk of violence and sex offending given he had completed group programmes and one-on-one programmes with relatively little progress. It was suggested then that he could be considered for the Child Sex Offender Treatment Programme.
  3. Today we have an assessment both from his private psychologist [withheld] as well as the Correction’s psychologist. Mr Holdem does seek not parole today.  He accepts there is significant work to be done. [withheld] and the psychologist from Corrections take a rather different view as to the way forward for Mr Holdem. It is not for us to express a view about the merits of their views. Our function is once rehabilitative treatment has been undertaken is to assess risk.  However, given there is a clear disagreement between the two psychologists and given Mr Holdem seems to favour his private psychologist over the Correction’s psychologist we think it would be appropriate for [withheld] along with the relevant Correction’s psychologist to get together and between them to try and map out a way forward for Mr Holdem that would address his risk.  Currently he remains an undue risk. We will see him again in 18 months’ time by the end of November 2021 with hope that he has been able to progress.

    4. Sir Ron Young
    Chairperson