30 is the minimum. Just read [the whole Court of Appeal decision]. It takes time.

PSM,

Contra RB's justified comment about cynicism, I should say I am sympathetic to most of what you say, or what I think you are trying to say.

When you get it wrong though, you really get it wrong.
William Bell (you are still wrong on his background etc) and Graham Burton's parole were disgraces, and the AG's Report is far from comforting. RB, of course we can't have 100 percent safety, particularly the PC/NOT PC version, but the status quo just ain't good enough.

Re Court of Appeal on Bell:
http://www.nzlii.org/cgi-bin/sinodisp/nz/cases/NZCA/2003/179.html?query=~%20william%20bell
"The psychiatric reports before the Court suggest that he represents, in the words of one of them, a high and persistent risk of violent re-offending.Unless that risk can be convincingly dispelled, Bell ought to be kept in custody for the rest of his natural life."

I could write a PHD about how frustrating the considerable potential of parts of the public service are, constantly being stymied by the cancer of managerialism and pathological bureaucratic risk aversion.
A decade of Tory beat-ups enabled by their kneecapping media
has left some people constantly hiding under their desks and trying to push other under there, too.

Meanwhile the media take their orders from Mr Oil,
Farrar, and the rest of "the sewer" (H/T NRT), collectively circle-jerking over pathetic non-stories like Winston's car, the hip-hop tour and Paintergate. Properly investigating complicatedl issues. Forget it!

"When people like the over-worked probation officer who decided that William Bell didn't need to be closely monitored (let's face it, he was just a drunk on parole after his first offence...) stuff up, bear in mind that that event is going to result in a plague of new paperwork that probably won't make any practical difference."

Wrong. William Bell had almost a hundred convictions, it sure wasn't his "first offence".