A FORMER councillor has backed calls for Janine Balding’s killer to be “shown mercy” and released from jail.
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Bronson Blessington was just 14 when he raped and killed the former Wagga woman in 1988 with his mates in one of the state’s most notorious crimes.
Blessington, now 42, has made a fresh appeal to the NSW Attorney-General for clemency.
Despite his prison file marked “never to be released”, Ray Goodlass urged Wagga people not to be overcome by emotion and consider the facts.
He said the case should be treated “sympathetically” given that Blessington was a child when he committed the crime.
It comes as former NSW director of public prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery, QC, supports his release and the United Nations condemns locking up a 14-year-old as “cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment” and in contravention of Australia’s human rights obligations.
“The first thing I should say is that I feel an enormous amount of grief for Janine Balding’s family, I really do,” Mr Goodlass said.
“But I think it’s important to say that all the facts need to be looked at … the findings of Nicholas Cowdery and also the UN contravention of the rights of a child need to be taken into account.
“Given that he might be rehabilitated, and he was only a child, I think the case should be looked at sympathetically.
“It’s very charged up with emotion, but a decision as important as this needs to consider the bigger picture as well.
“I’m not saying he should be released immediately, but he shouldn’t be locked up for life.”
A former prisoner, Wagga’s Jason Lagaali, who served 18 months’ jail for aggravated robbery, said it was possible to be rehabilitated but it depended strongly on the individual.
Mr Lagaali said releasing Blessington would be a difficult decision to make given the callousness of the crime.
“Some people can change, but others are stuck in their ways; some people can’t change,” he said.
“It depends on whether the individual wants to make the change themselves. It starts the moment you’re taken in.”
Mr Lagaali said he served time alongside killers, but had doubts about their rehabilitation.
An online poll by The Daily Advertiser found 94 per cent of readers wanted Blessington to remain behind bars for the rest of his life.