Xue judge's sentencing 'bewildering' says mayor

Nai Yin Xue.

Qian Xun Xue

Relevant offers

WAITAKERE MAYOR Bob Harvey has slammed a local judge who let killer Nai Yin Xue off with a warning for a previous attack on his wife, saying lenient sentences for domestic violence offenders have got to stop.

Harvey, who leads a mayoral task force on family violence, says questions need to be asked of Judge Phil Recordon and the family violence court at Waitakere, West Auckland, as a number of sentences have been "bewildering".

Recordon convicted Xue in June 2007, on charges of assaulting a child, assaulting a woman and threatening to kill, but despite a recommendation from the probation service that he be jailed, ordered only that Xue come up for sentence if called upon within one year.

Three months later Xue murdered his wife, An An Liu, dumped his daughter at a busy Melbourne train station and fled to America.

Recordon has been reported as saying jailing domestic violence offenders "flies in the face of reality" and said at a restorative justice conference in 2005: "What's the point of locking them up if you can avoid it?" He said first-time offenders should be encouraged to plead guilty and do non-violence courses.

In 2004 Recordon caused controversy when he discharged without conviction an All Black who admitted assaulting his pregnant wife, permanently suppressing his name.

Since family violence courts were piloted in Waitakere in 2001, similar courts have been rolled out in Whangarei, Auckland, Manukau, Palmerston North, Masterton, Porirua and Lower Hutt. They take an "holistic" approach to sentencing, aimed at rehabilitating offenders, strengthening families and speeding up the process.

Statistics New Zealand figures show that the number of people discharged without conviction for violent offences grew from 64 in 2001 to 128 in 2007 in Waitakere, which has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the country, and from 802 to 1638 nationally.

Harvey said jailing Xue for the previous attack might have saved his wife's life.

"I'm absolutely bloody appalled. I feel sometimes the court system fails families, it fails women and this is a real example of that. There's something seriously wrong here. Too many people, for reasons I cannot understand, are let off with warnings and a slap on the wrist, and it's got to stop."

A summary of facts of Xue's previous attack on Liu makes chilling reading. During an argument over finances he threw a mobile phone at her, striking her in the face and bouncing off the head of their two-year-old daughter, Qian Xun, causing a cut and swelling.

He then punched Liu in the face two or three times with a closed fist, took a 30cm-long knife, held it to her stomach, and said: "I am going to kill you."

She pleaded for her life, gave him a large amount of cash and fled to a women's refuge. Liu took out a protection order against Xue, which he later breached by contacting her. Xue had completed a stopping violence programme prior to being sentenced.

Recordon and Chief Judge Russell Johnson declined to discuss Xue's sentencing "as constitutional convention requires that judges don't discuss specific cases in the media".

But Harvey said the public had a right to know why Recordon made his decision.

"I like Phil, we respect judges here... but you've got to ask him, what goes? This is a case, you let him off with a slap on the wrist, he goes home and kills his wife and puts her in the boot of his car."

Waikato University law lecturer Ruth Busch, co-author of a report on domestic violence law which condemned the family violence courts, said she had several concerns about the courts, including the fact women were being put in unsafe situations without proper support.

"His whole family may be there, and she [the victim] can be asked by the judge, `do you think there's a chance of a reconciliation?' There's a tremendous coercion in that. Very often they give them relationship counselling, which is ridiculous. It's not about the relationship, it's about violence."

Busch said the rate of reoffending for people dealt with by family violence courts was no lower than other courts and in some cases fewer protection orders were given to battered women than by standard courts, which was "crazy".

An evaluation of the Manukau and Waitakere family violence courts last year found they were having "some success in meeting their objectives in spite of considerable difficulties", and Justice Minister Simon Power says he is a supporter of them.

"I was particularly impressed by the support the victims got from the dedicated people there to guide them through the process," Power said.