Anthony HITCHCOCK - 05/12/2019

Parole Hearing

Under section 21(2) of the Parole Act 2002

Anthony Phillip HITCHCOCK

Hearing: 5 December 2019

at Christchurch Men’s Prison

Members of the Board:

  • Sir Ron Young – Chairperson
  • Assoc Prof. P Brinded
  • Ms M More

In Attendance:

  • Mr L Pullan – Corrections Psychologist

DECISION OF THE BOARD

  1. Mr Hitchcock is 63 years of age and was sentenced to preventive detention and life imprisonment for murder, attempted rape, abduction and unlawful sexual connection.  The latter offending all being with respect to a young girl. He did have previous sexual offending and this offending occurred while he was on parole. He was first imprisoned in December 1996.
  2. When we saw him last in December 2018 he had not completed the Kia Marama Programme, but was doing intensive one-on-one psychological counselling.  He had made some, although limited, progress. The Board’s focus then turned towards reintegration, with the possibility of him being part of the Navigate reintegrative programme. The difficulty for Mr Hitchcock was that he had no real ultimate plan for release. He was invited to develop that. We noted, however, that was not to say that we were satisfied that without a suitable plan Mr Hitchcock would no longer be an undue risk.
  3. As far as the current position is concerned, Mr Hitchcock has been working in the kitchen. He has had recent contact with [withheld] and has attempted to amend some of the broken relationships with them. He is still undertaking [withheld].  He is assessed at being medium/high risk of violent and sexual offending.  There has been some improvement in his risk assessment given his age and the health difficulties he has. He has had significant concerns about his health and [withheld].
  4. As far as Mr Hitchcock’s reintegration is concerned, matters have not really progressed at all.  He has still not identified suitable long-term accommodation. We have previously indicated to him that we would be looking for some form of residential programme if we were seriously considering release. Not such programme has been identified. Because of Mr Hitchcock’s health problems the Navigate programme is currently not suitable.
  5. We record that we read out to him a summary of the discussion we had with the victims prior to his hearing today. Mr Hitchcock said that he was very sorry about the offending.  He wished that he could turn back time but he could not. He understood their view and said that he was constantly reminded of the harm he had done to them.
  6. As far as the future is concerned in terms of reintegration, we have said to Mr Hitchcock that he needs to spend time with his case manager to try and explore all possibilities beyond the [withheld] area now that [withheld] is not available to him to see if there are other alternatives. Of course, the alternatives would not include any rehabilitative programmes in [withheld], which would be objectionable to the victims.
  7. We have discussed the possibility, however, of Mr Hitchcock returning to the UK.  Mr Hitchcock is a UK citizen and is not a New Zealand citizen.  He does have family in the United Kingdom. Mr Hitchcock agreed to take up that possibility and investigate possible release there. We have outlined what would be necessary for him relating to release on parole to the UK.
  8. We will see him again in 12 months time, by the end of November 2020. In the meantime he remains an undue risk.

Sir Ron Young
Chairperson