Charles John COULAM - 11/05/20

Parole Hearing

Under section 21(2) of the Parole Act 2002

Charles John COULAM

Hearing: 11 May 2020

[withheld] via VMR from NZ Parole Board, Head Office Wellington

Members of the Board:

  • Sir Ron Young – Chairperson
  • Assoc Prof. P Brinded
  • Dr G Coyle

In Attendance: [withheld]

DECISION OF THE BOARD

  1. Mr Coulam was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and assault to commit sexual violation.  He was first imprisoned in December 1989. He had no relevant convictions. He has now been [withheld] for a number of years.
  2. We saw him last in August 2019 when he was settled and was reliably taking his medication. There was some further psychological one-on-one counselling taking place regarding his sex offending. Unfortunately at that stage he had used an iPhone to access pornography and had as a result his reintegration in [withheld] had been delayed.
  3. As to the current position Mr Coulam’s overnight leave, as a result of him accessing the pornography, was cancelled and he was reintroduced into slow leaves with four open leaves recently. Although he now has a phone it has no Internet connection and there is nothing to suggest he has tried to access the phone again.
  4. Mr Coulam does have a complex mental illness. [withheld]. There has not been any further manifestation of thinking regarding sexual violence apparently for many years. However, the difficulty Mr Coulam has is in understanding or seeing how others might view his offending and view his subsequent behaviour. [withheld] are providing psychotherapy for Mr Coulam regarding his recent access to pornography to try and assist him to understand how others might see his actions. He does however understand and accept that what he did is wrong.
  5. The [withheld] proposal is that over a period he will have increasing overnight leave working towards in the long-term some form of supported accommodation. In the meantime, he remains an undue risk.  We are happy to support the progress being made by [withheld]. We will see him again in 12 months time by the end of April 2021.

Sir Ron Young
Chairperson