Published: 8:32AM Monday July 27, 2009
Source: Newstalk ZB/NZPA
Source: ONE News
The Director of Mental Health, David Chaplow, is confident that one of New Zealand's worst mass killers is in good hands.
Stephen Anderson, 37, shot dead six people and injured four others in a drug-fuelled shooting rampage at his family's lodge at Raurimu in 1997. A paranoid schizophrenic, he was found to be insane and is now living in Upper Hutt.
Dr Chaplow says his psychiatric care is continuing. He admits the potential risk of Anderson reoffending is always there and forensic mental health services need to keep that in mind and continually audit how he is progressing.
One of Anderson's victims is furious he has been released from psychiatric care and is living freely in the Wellington area.
Isabel McCarty was shot in the back by Anderson, who also killed her husband Anthony. She says it is "another example of New Zealand not punishing people who do something wrong" and the family has never had an apology or seen any signs of remorse despite knowing him since he was a little boy.
The victims of the massacre and their families had been told they would not be formally notified of Anderson's release because he was found not guilty on the grounds of insanity.
At the time of the killings, Anderson was under the care of Capital and Coast's community mental health team in Wellington after being diagnosed two years earlier as a paranoid schizophrenic.
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