Family’s shock as brutal wife killer Raymond Holschier gets NDIS funding to treat his anger
Raymond Holschier, who murdered his wife with a brick and bashed their young daughter so savagely she was left with permanent brain damage, is out of jail despite being regarded as a potentially “severe’’ risk to community safety. He is also getting NDIS funding for anger management treatment.
NSW
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- Prison bosses deny Holschier fathered kids behind bars
- Holschier paroled three times and returned to jail
A MURDERER released from jail will get his anger management treatment paid for by the National Disability Insurance Scheme with a judge saying he may still present a “severe” threat to community safety.
His victim’s devastated family yesterday hit out at the decision to give Raymond Holschier, 51, who bashed his partner to death with a brick and left their daughter brain-damaged, NDIS funding to manage his mental problems and anger issues.
“We have disadvantaged people living in the streets in dire straits and they can’t get help and this murderer is getting whatever he wants,” the family said in a statement to The Daily Telegraph. “This is ridiculous. It is just unfair.”
The Supreme Court was told last week that Holschier, who refused to complete a Violent Offenders Course in jail, has been on an extended supervision order (ESO), used for ex-prisoners who present a serious danger to the community, since his murder sentence ended in 2014.
The ESO is due to run out in February and Community Corrections, which is part of NSW Corrective Services, has recommended the order should not be renewed despite a shocking history of not complying with the ESO and being in and out of jail since 2014.
Justice Cliff Hoeben, who has to decide whether to extend the ESO, said there is a risk of domestic violence should Holschier begin another relationship after not only killing his former defacto but assaulting the partner he met while in jail.
“While the defendant has been relatively stable for some time, the paramountcy of the safety of the community dictates a cautionary approach,” Justice Hoeben said.
“Drugs, which were one of his major risk factors, are still a potential problem.
“The harm to the community that may result if the defendant were to destabilise could be severe.”
Holschier’s care needs are extensive. His taxpayer-funded lawyer said he was now waiting to receive services under the NDIS.
“I have only met my client this morning but for this man, given the nature of what has happened to him, he’s doing very well, very, very well,” his Legal Aid barrister Sally Orman-Hales told the court.
“He has been approved and has received funding from the NDIS but the services have not started yet.”
Victims advocate Howard Brown said the NDIS should be giving people wheelchairs and helping them to get their lives back on track, not keeping killers out of jail.
Mr Brown said if Holschier needed counselling and treatment to keep the community safe, he should be on a continuing detention order and have it paid for by Corrective Services.
“This is something that is really ticking me off,” he said.
“NDIS doesn’t have unlimited funds and we should not be depriving people who have not committed crimes from accessing that money.
“This is not what NDIS was set up for.”
Holschier was jailed for life for the 1989 murder of his 24-year-old de facto and for leaving the couple’s daughter brain damaged but his sentence was reduced to 25 years with 17 years non-parole under truth in sentencing laws.
On the ESO, he is under the supervision of the Violent Offenders Therapeutic Program, which is part of Corrective Services.
The court was told that once a week for two years from 2014, he visited psychologist Fiona Mason, VOTP team leader, to help with risk management, managing his emotions, living in Sydney and dealing with family issues. For the past two years Holschier, who also has emphysema, has seen her once a fortnight.
He visits another counsellor more than once a week and has a case worker and a psychiatrist from Blacktown Mental Health team also looking after him. He gets his medication for chronic schizophrenia by injection because he can relapse in hours when he doesn’t take it.
The last time he didn’t take it he ended up back in Parklea Jail in April for breaching the ESO and “may” have used illicit drugs which he claimed were only Codral cold and flu tablets, the court heard.
Holschier has two children which he notoriously claims he conceived while in Junee Jail and Ms Mason agreed that there was a “risk” with any new intimate partner. During a time when he was on parole, his mother, who looked after his two children, had to take out an AVO after he threatened to slit her throat and burn her house down. Yesterday his mother said the family was behind him “100 per cent”.
“He has turned his life around, it’s really great,” she said. “He’s not really well but he’s not mental.”
The family of his former partner, who cannot be named because it would identify the daughter who was just 13 months old when Holschier attacked her after killing her mother, have been asked to put in a submission to the court. His ESO was extended until the case returns to court on February 8 for a report by a psychologist and a psychiatrist pending his possible release from the order.
“It has to be acknowledged that the defendant has not been convicted of a serious offence since 1991,” Justice Hoeben said.
A Department of Social Services spokesman said yesterday: “The NDIS is designed to support people with permanent and significant disability regardless of their personal circumstances or how their disability arose.”
Raymond Holschier’s criminal history:
Between 1984 and 1989, he was convicted of 21 charges of violence
SEPTEMBER 1989
Kills his de facto and bashes their 13-month-old baby
AUGUST 1991
Convicted and jailed for life
DECEMBER 1998
Under truth in sentencing, his life term is redetermined to 25 years with 17 years non-parole
DECEMBER 2008
First released on parole
JANUARY 2009
Parole revoked after he breaches conditions by being in company of the children he claims to have fathered behind bars
MARCH 2010
Released on parole for second time
MAY 2010
He threatened to slit his mother and let her “guts fall out” then burn her in bed Police applied for an AVO to protect his children
DECEMBER 2010
State Parole Authority issue a warning for drug use
JANUARY 2011
Back in jail after parole revoked for “an inability to adapt to lawful community life”
MARCH 2011
Charge of domestic violence when he allegedly punched his de facto dismissed by police
MAY 2011
Convicted of contravening an AVO by contacting that person while in custody
JULY 2011
Released on parole for third time
NOVEMBER 2011
Back in jail after parole revoked for using illicit substances
MARCH 2013
Refused parole
SEPTEMBER 2014
Released from jail close to the expiry of his full sentence
DECEMBER 2014
Supreme Court on an application by the state government makes him subject to a three-year high-risk violent offender extended supervision order that restricts his freedom
DECEMBER 2016
Back in jail after breaching the ESO including letting his electronic monitoring device to go flat
JULY 2017
Released from jail, still on an ESO
APRIL 2018
Back in jail for short time after breaching the ESO
DECEMBER 2018
Supreme Court told he’s doing “very very well”
Originally published as Family’s shock as brutal wife killer Raymond Holschier gets NDIS funding to treat his anger
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