4 days ago
Snowtown murderer James Vlassakis parole review yet to be decided, police commissioner says
South Australia's Police Commissioner says he will speak with Major Crime detectives before deciding if he will seek a review of the decision to grant Snowtown murderer James Vlassakis parole.
The SA Parole Board on Tuesday granted parole to the youngest of the four perpetrators involved in the "bodies-in-the-barrels" serial killings between 1992 and 1999.
Vlassakis was sentenced to life, but because he helped authorities the court handed down a non-parole period of 26 years that ended in May.
SA's Attorney-General, the Victims' Rights Commissioner and SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens have 60 days to request a review to the parole board's decision.
Mr Stevens told ABC Radio Adelaide he had not yet decided whether he would seek a review, but said he would consider the matter once he had had a chance to examine the parole board's decision.
"I haven't seen the basis for the decision of the parole board at this stage … and we'll have a look at how that aligns to any prior advice that we've given to the parole board in the lead-up to this parole board hearing," he said.
"On the basis of that … I will make a decision as to whether there's something I'll do, in terms of what I'm able to do under the Correctional Services Act."
Mr Stevens said public safety was a major factor among "a range of considerations" that would determine whether he would seek a review.
"Major Crime Investigation Branch have a significant stake in this, and they also have the connection with families and other interested stakeholders," he said.
"I've already spoken to the head of Major Crime, Superintendent Darren Fielke — he's waiting for that report from the parole board.
"That would be the first point for us to start working through a process that'll lead to a determination."
The Commissioner for Victims' Rights, Sarah Quick, told ABC News Breakfast she could not reveal if she would seek a review of the decision to grant Vlassakis parole.
"There are very strict confidentiality requirements around the review process, so none of us are at liberty to disclose whether we will or won't lodge a request for a review of that decision, so I really can't comment," Ms Quick said.
She said responses from the loved ones of the Snowtown victims to the parole decision had varied.
"Certainly knowing that [Vlassakis] is subject to conditions for the rest of his life does bring them some sense of security."
She said the crime continued to have an impact on victims.
"I think we tend to overlook that in our desire for true crime stories and the details of crime," she said.
"We tend to overlook the impact on victims and their families, and it is really important to understand that every media report does trigger victims, triggers their grief and their trauma."
SA Parole Board chair Frances Nelson KC said a review could be requested by authorities to check whether the board had erred in its decision-making.
"They can seek that the parole review commissioner Michael David KC review our decision," she said.
"That doesn't entitle him to impose his own views but simply to see if we've made an error in the process."
She said she understood why victims might not want Vlassakis, whose image remains suppressed, released into the community, but the parole board could not impose further sentence on an offender.
"We can only look at what our role is. Is he suitable for parole, having regard to the legislative criteria? And he is," she said.
Ms Nelson said the board had "very carefully" considered the potential risk to community safety.
"He wouldn't be released directly into the community — we never release life sentence prisoners directly into the community," she said.
"Apart from anything else, the world has changed a lot in the last 26 years. I doubt he even knows how to operate a mobile phone."
Ms Nelson said Vlassakis would enter a pre-release centre where he would be introduced to "a very careful resocialisation program" and have psychological counselling.
She said Vlassakis, whose behaviour in prison had been "exemplary", would have "family support" as well as parole conditions for life.
"There are some geographic exclusion zones which the victims have requested — we raised that with him and he volunteered that the last thing he wants to do inadvertently [is] to run into one of the victims' families," Ms Nelson said.
"He wants to work. He appreciates it would be very difficult for him to get employment with his history.
"He faces a number of challenges, including the media [which] would be fairly intrusive — and that's actually a good thing because if people think the door will open and everything will be rosy, they are heading for disappointment. But I think he's thought through the difficulties that he will face."
