Prisoner refuses parole hearing

Press, 5 March 1987, Page 14

Prisoner refuses parole hearing

PA Wellington A Paremoremo prisoner, Dean Wickcliffe, has told his sister he will not appear before the prison’s parole board later this month because “justice still has not been done.”

Wickcliffe, aged 38, was convicted of the murder of a jeweller, Paul Andre Miet, in March, 1972, in the Wellington Royal Oak jewellery store he was robbing. The Court of Appeal decided last December that Wickcliffe’s conviction for murder should be overturned, and reduced to one of manslaughter, but no change to the original sentence of life imprisonment should be made.

The Court said it was not a matter of punishing Wickcliffe further and that his release after the parole board had considered his case should be as early as reasonably prac-

ticable. Wickcliffe’s sister, Ms Awahea Campbell, of Porirua, showed the “Evening Post” a letter her brother wrote to her from prison last week. In the letter, Wickcliffe said he had predicted correctly that he would be given life for manslaughter. ,

“It is the first time for 70 years they have handed down such a sentence for manslaughter, and it is the only time they have imposed it for what is now acknow-, ledged as an accident,” Ms Campbell said.

Wickliffe told his sister in the letter he would not compromise, and refused to accept that “this whole farce is justice.”

“I at least have the moral satisfaction of denying them my submission. By continuing to refuse my collaboration I am refusing to legitimise the farce.”