Parole Board head Frances Nelson QC criticises the Supreme Court’s ‘reluctance’ to keep SA’s worst criminals in jail indefinitely
SA’s Parole Board chief has told an inquest into the murder of an outback nurse that criminals too dangerous for society are on the streets because Supreme Court judges are reluctant to jail them forever.
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The head of the Parole Board has lashed the Supreme Court for its reluctance to order the indefinite detention of the state’s most dangerous criminals.
Appearing in the inquest into the abduction and murder of outback nurse Gayle Woodford, Frances Nelson QC said some criminals are so dangerous they need to be kept behind bars.
But she did not believe that the current Supreme Court would have kept Ms Woodford’s killer in jail indefinitely.
Ms Nelson appeared in the Coroners Court as part of the inquest into the death of remote area nurse Gayle Woodford at the hands of Dudley Davey in March 2016.
Deputy Coroner Anthony Schapel has already heard closing statements for the inquest but Ms Nelson was granted leave to appear in her role as head of the Parole Board to contest various statements made by counsel assisting Ahura Kalali.
Ms Nelson said Mr Kalali’s submissions indicated that the Parole Board should have made a recommendation to the Attorney-General’s Department to apply for Davey’s indefinite detention.
Davey had an extensive criminal history littered with attacks against women, including other nurses in remote communities.
He had recently finished a sentence for indecently assaulting a woman in the city when he kidnapped and murdered Ms Woodford in Fregon in March 2016.
“To say that the Parole Board is best placed to make an application to the Attorney-General is just not the case,” Ms Nelson said.
“To use words like the Parole Board is the ‘last bastion’ is totally inappropriate and misconceived.”
She said that it was not within the power of the Parole Board to make such a recommendation and even if the application had been made, it was unlikely to have been backed by the Supreme Court.
The Attorney-General can ask the Supreme Court to hold an offender in indefinite detention if they believe they are unwilling or unable to control their sexual impulses.
Ms Nelson said there was a noted “reluctance” by the Supreme Court to make such orders.
“I have to tell you that in my experience the current Supreme Court bench are unlikely to make that kind of order,” she said.
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“I can’t think of when the last order was made. There is certainly a reluctance on behalf of the bench to make an order for indefinite detention because there is a view that when someone has completed their sentence they have ‘done their time’, so to speak.”
Ms Nelson said she did not share that reluctance.
“I don’t want Your Honour to think for a second that I am against it personally,” she said.
“I have dealt with a good many dangerous people in my time and in my view, which I note is not shared by the Supreme Court, some people are so dangerous they need to be kept out of the community until they no longer present a risk which can be managed safely.
“But I do understand philosophically why that is such a difficult decision to be made by the court.”
Ms Nelson said that Corrections had the responsibility to assess Davey before he was released and that the Parole Board did not have the resources or the power to order psychiatric reports.