Henderson EmilyDr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Thank you very much Madam Chair—Ginny Andersen: My question for the member—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Apologies.Ginny Andersen: Oh I thought you said—Henderson and Andersen almost sound the same.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Emily Henderson.Dr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): I won!I want to really respond to and perhaps riff on what my colleague Professor Duncan Webb was talking about before because I think again this is something that—he's right lawyers and judges are going to go back and they're going to look at these things and they're going to wonder what the heck we were on about. So I think it is important that we talk about this. When we look at Part 1 and we look at clause 3A which is amending the interpretation section—that's the first point at which as you'll remember Ms Upston that we introduced our new verdict which as all of the previous speakers have alluded to caused us quite a bit of angst. It caused quite a few people quite a bit of angst because again this is something that really goes to the heart of what you were trying to do I think but also what the criminal justice system—long-held tenets of the criminal justice system. And in particular as my colleague Mr Webb—Professor Webb as I'm now going to call him for the rest of the evening—Dr Duncan Webb: Don't do that.Dr EMILY HENDERSON: Don't do that—was saying it goes to that mens rea / actus reus aspect. I really would like you to spend some time talking to us about your thoughts about how we got to that definition because as my colleague Vanushi Walters said it's actually very close to your original. In the end after all that we circled back after all that discussion. But for me act proven"—and "proven" was the word that became a real hiccup because proven suggests that the crime was committed and for a crime to be committed of course you've got to have both those things: the actus reus the act and you've got to have the mental intention. A person who is insane cannot form that mental intention and traditionally by that very nature that is it they are not an offender. They can be accused but they cannot be convicted of the offence in the traditional way.But this was of immense emotional importance as I recall. This was—I remember Ms Upston saying I remember the submitters saying that once you hear "not guilty" you don't hear anything else. You don't take in insanity you don't take in the explanations. So our challenge was to craft a verdict which made it both clear to the justice system that we did not consider this person could be convicted of a crime but also to the victim that we recognise that something was done to them and it was this person who did it. So we had to balance that. We had to balance the validation of that experience—"Yes this person did this thing to you."—with the criminal law's inability to I guess bring that reality home to the person because they don't fit the definition they don't fit our system. So what we did was to say the act is proven the actus reus has occurred but the person is not criminally responsible on account of insanity. Meaning as we saw it I think insanity has rendered them—the mens rea element has gone so they are not criminally responsible but they still did it they just don't have the mens rea. Therefore that is where we came to.Now later on when we get to that part I would really like to get you to dig into the fact that we did then go and change the definition of "offender" and "offence" to include for the purposes of the Victims Rights Act in order to do that other very important thing which was to synchronise the rights of the victim of an ordinary offender and the victim of someone who is insane. In order to be able to synchronise their notice provisions and all of that we had to change the definition of what an offender is for the purposes of the Victims' Rights Act. So that's I think where the title comes from also.So I wonder if you would be prepared to just talk about that interplay of factors: the need for notice and the need to have that trickle down in the practical sphere."