Outspoken commentator Prue MacSween has criticised the decision to release a man who killed a teenage girl and then tried to rape a woman at knifepoint months after he was last let out into the community, amid fears no woman is safe.
“Medium to high risk” killer Terrence John Leary, now 57, will soon be released from jail for a second time following a decision by the New South Wales State Parole Authority last Thursday.
Leary was sentenced to 24 years in prison for the 1990 murder of 17-year-old Vanessa Hoson.
He entered her family home in Kenthurst, northwest of Sydney, and beat her to death with a hammer after the teenager refused to have sex with him.
Leary was granted parole after serving 22 years.
Just 10 months after his release, he violently assaulted a woman, dragging her behind a bus stop in an attempted rape.
The 30-year-old Thai woman had just finished a babysitting shift in Sydney’s north on June 19, 2013, and was listening to music at a bus stop in Hunters Hill.
In an “explosive and vicious” attack, Leary grabbed her by the neck, dragged her behind the bus stop, punched her in the face, pulled down her jeans so hard that her belt broke, and stabbed her in the neck as he tried to rape her. A bystander intervened and called police.
Vanessa Hoson (pictured) was just 17 in 1990 when Terrence John Leary walked into her family home and killed her for refusing to have sex with him.
Terrence John Leary (pictured) violently assaulted a woman and attempted to rape her during his last time on parole.
The girl survived and Leary was sentenced to another 15 years for assault and attempted rape.
Having served 11 years in prison for that brazen 2013 attack, Leary is set to be released on Sept. 18, nearly four years before his sentence is set to end.
The parole board granted him release with the highest level of supervision after concluding it was “inevitable” that he would eventually re-enter the community, potentially without supervision if his full sentence was up.
Leary is expected to be released on September 18.
Ms MacSween said the decision showed a failure to keep Australians safe.
“This shows how inadequate our legal system is and how it is failing our community as he is now free to rape other women. No woman will be safe roaming the streets,” she told Daily Mail Australia.
“That dog should be chemically neutered, as far as I’m concerned. How many times do we have to forgive these people and give them another chance, only for these things to happen again?”
“They should lock him up and throw away the key. These people do not deserve to have the same freedoms as the rest of society.”
Ms MacSween added that there was no chance Australians would be comfortable with the parole board’s decision.
Commentator Prue MacSween (pictured) said the convicted killer should be “chemically castrated” and branded the NSW legal system “inadequate”.
“Women will not be able to sleep peacefully knowing that this dog can roam freely,” she said.
She asked if the parole board had considered whether her family members could be his next victim.
Vanessa Hoson’s devastated family have long fought to keep Leary locked up for fear he would strike again if released.
They have campaigned tirelessly against his release for years.
Vanessa’s sister, Fiona Walker, warned in a presentation to the board that “this will happen again.”
In his statement, he quoted the judge who last sentenced him, who said that “he is a continuing danger to society” and “cannot be said to have any real prospects for rehabilitation.”
“It’s not in our interest to continue fighting for the community, but we know that someone else will go through what we went through,” Walker told the Sydney Morning Herald.
‘It’s simply disappointing that someone who is a medium to high risk offender is out in the community where he poses a danger to more girls.
“It would be better if he died in prison and that would solve all the problems,” Walker said.
However, the authority’s chairman, Judge Geoffrey Bellew, ruled that early parole was the surest route to Leary’s reintegration.
“The alternative is to keep the offender in custody and release him at some later time, either with a shorter period of parole supervision or at the end of his sentence with no period of supervised parole at all,” he said.
“The criminal will be released at some point. That is inevitable.”
Vanessa Hoson’s sister, Fiona Walker (pictured), has long been fighting for Leary to remain behind bars
Leary is classified as a serious sex offender and will be subject to electronic monitoring while residing in a facility supported by NSW Corrective Services as part of the conditions of his parole.
In addition to the curfew and other conditions, Leary’s mental health will also be monitored.
Leary was denied parole six times for the 1990 murder before finally being released.
Ms Walker argued that Leary should be declared a repeat serious sex offender and kept under a continuing detention order.
The authority confirmed that it had considered expert advice from the Serious Offender Review Council (SORC), which recommended that conditional release was appropriate.
“The offender has successfully completed programs to address his crimes, including a sex offender program,” it said.
In addition to the normal conditions of probation, he was also subject to other rules, including not having any contact with the victim or her family, not going to certain council areas and not participating in psychology sessions.
Judge Bellew denied Leary’s release on 18 September.
“The reality is far from that and the suggestion that he will walk free is nothing more than a misunderstanding of the process,” he said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Service for Support and Reparation in Cases of Sexual Abuse 1800 211 028
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