Posts by Stephen Judd
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OK Vinnie, what I'm saying is that your concern for your child - and my lack of concern for mine - is irrelevant, unless its connected to some reasonable assessment of risk. I'm tired of people using children as a sort of trump card that always wins in arguments about risk.
What I read in the Herald is that he lives at the Mason clinic, is monitored by them, and that he's supervised at work. That the people who have the expertise to assess risk and make those decisions are doing so.
They don't seem to have too bad a track record:
"Mason Clinic director Sandy Simpson said the success rate with patients such as Burton was extremely high. In the past four years, not one patient who had left the clinic had reoffended."
It's true that his crime originated in a failure of "the system", but at the same time, you have to think that you only ever hear about the (rare) failures, not the successes. And also, when he killed his mother, he wasn't in hospital, and wasn't monitored - in other words, in quite a different situation to now.
It's all very well to imagine psychotic killers bearing down on your daughter, but you have to ask yourself whether that's a real risk that's more severe than the ones you already allow her to take. You say "it's possible", and I agree - the question is "how likely is it?" Is it possible like the possibility of her being run down at a school pedestrian crossing? Like her dying of meningitis? Or like being hit by a meteorite on the playing field?
The newspaper article stirs up our fears, but to the extent that it offers guidance (and it doesn't offer much) it seems like the risk is very low.
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This is it, isn't it: is there a legitimate public interest here? Or only a prurient one?
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Neil: yup, that was what I wanted to say but couldn't get to cohere.
Craig: well said, and more power to you.
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Watching the news - there's TV3 outing his next workplace. So will he ever be anywhere without TV3 following him? How fair is that?
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PS: I have a young daughter too. Does that make my opinion cancel out Vinnie's? Or is it irrelevant?
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But he was supervised, and shovelling dung. Hardly a position with a lot of potential for unmonitored access to your kids.
I would go out on a limb and say that if he's living in a supervised environment and taking his meds, he is a much safer employee than your average person. Purely by the law of averages, there is probably someone on staff there (and at your local Macdonalds, and at the supermarket, and down at the mall) who is a greater risk and whom nobody is watching
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I just had an interesting reply from the Zoo. I'll see if I can repost it here.
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Interesting that the Herald's own feedback page has quite a few stern remarks directed at the Herald, particularly about the headline "Killer at the Zoo."
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"But the news - revealed by the Herald on Sunday yesterday - that he was working at the zoo came as a shock to zoo bosses who on Saturday arranged for his employment to be terminated immediately."
The Herald are not clear on whether they are the people who told the Zoo or not. It's implied, but not explicitly stated.
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Richard, you could be a noble PR eagle :)
I'd actually be really interested in your informed view as a PR person: what if the zoo had said "Yes, we're extending the same care and decency to Burton as we do to other animals. He's supervised and a minimal risk to the public." Mightn't that do as much good to perceptions of the zoo as bad? And in a couple of weeks, what would it matter anyway?