" Cat and Mouse " Game !

This week the prison gates will shut behind a released prisoner who has completed  the  seventeen year sentence for the manslaughter of five year old Samantha Knight in 1986.  He has never disclosed how and where he disposed of her body and the charge of murder was reduced to manslaughter when he claimed the victim died as a result of a drug he administered.

Michael Anthony Guider is now sixty-eight years old and he will not have unlimited freedom.  An attempt to keep him in prison for a further year failed and he will be released on a five year extended supervision order.  Under that order he will be forced to wear a bracelet that will  enable his whereabouts to be constantly checked by his supervisors and be barred from certain suburbs and places which children frequent, such as cinemas. There will also be limitations on his internet access.

There are over fifty other stringent release conditions that will apply.  He will be medically monitored and will be required to furnish his schedule for each coming week for approval by his supervisors. He will be required to live in an approved place of residence.

Despite those precautions, a man known to have a predilection for children will pose a risk for the kids that he must pass in the streets of Sydney.  When that five year supervision order expires he will have unlimited freedom because he served the entire prison sentenced ordered at his trial.  As a consequence, his release  is not because he is deemed rehabilitated but because he has simply served out the legal time imposed by the court.

Our legal system is based on rewards for good behaviour.  Obeying the rules can deliver early release and few prisoners serve the entire length of their sentence.  It helps if they show remorse for their crime and part of rehabilitation is the disclosure of where the victims may have been buried.  This was not forthcoming in the Samantha Knight trial and the convicted has since remained silent.

Because our justice system imposes both a maximum prison sentence and a period after which release on parole may be considered, freedom is eventually guaranteed. The citizens of Sydney have the unnerving experience of knowing that a potential threat to their children is about to walk the streets of this city.

Obviously, Samantha Knight's body was disposed of somewhere and recovery would give her family closure. Perhaps we should consider amending the legal system to impose indeterminate sentences which depend on truthful disclosure that allows body recovery of the deceased.  A person who wilfully refuses that information can not be considered rehabilitated.

Now the law begins a dangerous " cat and mouse " game.   The " watchers "  must use the limited powers at their disposal to maintain control.  Failure could cost another child's life  !