Dally will probably never be released

The Dom Post reports:

The man who kidnapped, tortured and brutally murdered Lower Hutt schoolgirl Karla Cardno will remain in jail for at least three more years.

Paul Joseph Dally has already served 20 years of a life sentence but the Parole Board considers him too dangerous to be freed.

In its latest decision, issued yesterday, the board took the extra step of making a three-year postponement order, meaning Dally will not be eligible for parole again until 2013 except in exceptional circumstances. He had not even begun to rehabilitate, the board said.

Dally kidnapped 13-year-old Karla in May 1989 as she cycled to her Lower Hutt home. He then raped and tortured her in his nearby home, watching from the window as her frantic family searched outside.

Later he drove to the Pencarrow Coast, near Eastbourne, where he smashed her skull with a piece of driftwood and buried her face-down, naked and still alive, with her hands bound. Her body was found several weeks later.

The decision quoted a “chilling” psychological assessment given to the board, saying Dally showed “a high degree of relationship to serious and violent recidivism”.

If life without parole had been available as a sentence back then, Dally would be a perfect fit for it. The Parole Board has correctly judged that Dally shows absolutely no sign of rehabilitation, and is not letting him out.

It is a pity that they have to go through the farce of a hearing every three years, when life without parole would have meant the victim’s family don’t have to put up with the case hitting the media again, every time he has a parole hearing.

I don’t advocate life without parole for all murders, but it would have been appropriate for Dally’s killing of Cardno.