O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Reading through this bill it's quite incredible that this hasn't happened before and I compliment the member for picking this up. I'm only sitting here wondering why it hasn't happened before and possibly it's because the offenders in these crimes are often close family members of or are known to the victims. I know from my personal experience in the police that that's the only reason I can think of why it probably hasn't come into being but with that said it's very much a changing thing. I note the number of cases where people have been found not guilty by way of insanity is on the increase. Again I can only put that down to the amount of mental illness that's now going to be the result particularly of our P epidemic the results of which appear to show that it basically hollows out the brain. There's going to be a much more long-term effect of this because certainly the effect of the crimes of somebody on P are really actually much more horrific than many of the shall we say normal offences that certainly people like myself as detectives have been involved with over the years. I know of one personal case where a young man who actually took up with a gang ended up giving evidence against his fellow gang members. He did his bit and would have appeared to have established for himself a normal life. He actually gave up the drink and found a religion and it looked like he was actually going to be heading to a life perhaps away from that given he had that fresh start in life. I got a phone call from him on a Monday evening to tell me that he'd changed his life around and he was ready to go. I was driving home on the Friday night and I heard that someone had killed his two children and his neighbour in Hokianga and I immediately knew intuitively who it was going to be. I rang the then Detective Inspector Viv Rickard who was running the inquiry and told him what I knew and he was very surprised that I knew. That was the person who then obviously was a classic case of a young man who had basically gone over the edge—an absolutely horrific crime. That person is—I've got to be careful with it obviously—still in care but one day he may well be released. It would be actually a travesty if somehow through the system if the people who—well obviously not the immediate victims but the families of victims didn't know that this not now young man any more or this person was actually going to be released into society. I have to say if the truth be known I'd probably put myself in that as well. I've often thought that if he did end up out and about that person—I may well be in his sights. So not to personalise this too much but again I'm somewhat shocked that we have got to this stage and no one has ever really thought of this and this bill hasn't been here. So again I commend the member for having obviously—and I didn't hear all of her speech so presumably there is something that has come about that has brought to her attention the anomaly in this bill. My understanding—and again I haven't come with research—is there is still the possibility that these people can stand trial again if they have never stood trial. So while there are those who are found not guilty by way of insanity there are those who actually are unfit to ever stand trial and that's actually another category of person. I'm just not quite sure—and I see the member has gone now. But I will certainly discuss this later on when we get further into the select committee part of this—which I'm pleased to see will be coming to my select committee—to work out whether that category actually is as I say people who have never because of the mental state they were in at the time actually stood trial. So there is actually never a finding and it's only if eventually those cases end up in the coroner's court and that's the time when we get a few findings particularly around anything that does require any subsequent court case or legal processes around findings. That's where you have to go to—to the coroner's court—to actually find the results of that. So again in looking at the provisions of this bill I can only commend this bill. As far as the rights of victims go again it's pleasing to see just in my time the evolving of the criminal justice system. Certainly we've seen the rights of victims come to the fore and absolutely rightfully so. It's getting that balance right to make sure that those who are criminals or those who we bring before the courts do get the right to have evidence tested. It's actually getting that balance right and I know even just in my short time in the House here I have been involved in several bills that again like this bill do seek to get that balance right. There will always be people who sadly will commit crimes horrific crimes with the evidence clearly showing for any number of reasons that those people aren't responsible for their actions at the time. Of course that brings us to the discussion about what they've done or what they've been responsible for doing to get themselves into that state in the first place through lifestyle or various other things. But the reality of it is that it's very much a science. Again I've had involvement with medical specialists those whose job it has been to assess such people and again it's not that easy because there tends to be—well one thing I won't say is that I remember as a very young police officer going to the then Lake Alice and up until then I'd sort of grown up with hearing that people get off with insanity. Well let me say one thing that I do assure anyone who is listening now: if you think anyone gets off with insanity where they end up and the sorts of institutions they end up in are much worse than spending—I've always said that five years in what used to be called obviously insane asylums or those mental health units is a place where I would have probably with my experience sooner have spent time in Her Majesty's normal custody than in one of those places. So one thing I can assure people of is that if there's anyone who thinks somehow that an insanity plea is getting away with it is that it certainly isn't. It enters offenders into a process that certainly generally means that they won't be in a position to walk freely around the world. Though as I say it does happen and this bill—Madam Speaker coming right back to the bill; as you know I want to very rarely stray off the bill in my time on my feet—will ensure that those victims of crime are at the centre and should always be at the centre of everything we do with any justice legislation. They're put where they should be where a terrible situation may have arisen where family members have been victims and someone may run into someone walking the streets whom they still thought was locked away in some sort of an institution. So for that reason I do commend this bill to the House and I commend the member for discovering what has clearly been a long-held gap in our system. If she does nothing else in her time in the House and this does go through to its logical conclusion I think it will be something she'll be rightly very proud of having brought to the attention of this House. I commend this bill to the House. Debate interrupted.