Broken Lives

On an early, 5:50am train this morning as I once again have a teleconference with our Los Angeles office and today is probably the last opportunity for a post until Monday / Tuesday next week.  I am off for 2 nights in Bowral / Moss Vale area for a work conference and then from there, driving down with Niki to Shepparton for my mate Joey’s wedding.  It will be 2 nights in “Shep” as well and then I am having a belated Fathers Day on Monday and I’ll be having the day off work and we’ll keep Kate home from school.

A small news story that had some airtime yesterday was the arrest of John Lewthwaite on a breach of his parole conditions.  For those who don’t know who John Lewthwaite is, he sexually assaulted and then murdered a little girl about 25-30yrs ago and was jailed but released 7yrs ago.  The reason this story catches my attention is that the girl who was killed was in the suburb I grew up in and her younger brother was in my year at school.  Now not meaning to speak ill of anyone, but this guy and his family were incredibly weird people and the kid was virtually a recluse at school.  I cant even remember his first name, but we all knew him as the brother of the murdered girl.  In hindsight, it is clear that this kid and his parents were incredibly traumatised and he would have had a horrendous home life.  Today I feel very sorry for them and understand now why things were the way they were.

Having had this experience then, every time John Lewthwaite gets a mention, it brings back school day memories and when he was released from prison on parole I can remember the huge public debate and I can remember the family, in particular the mother, being interviewed in which she feared for her life as Lewthaite was going to come back and kill them.

Now yesterday, his name is again front page news.  Why?  Well Lewthwaite was caught and charged with willfully exposing himself in public.  When I heard that, I presumed he was at school or other inappropriate place flashing himself.  Instead he was in the sand dunes at Wanda Beach with another man.  So what they’re saying is that they caught him having gay sex in a secluded beach sand dunes.

So what is the point of me writing all this… well it just made realise that the press have jumped onto the murder of the Haans girl and have given that story exposure yet again, they again went to the mother of the girl Gwen Haans and interviewed her yet again and they had her holding pictures of her daughter which are now old and faded and you have to ask why?  Why drag up these stories for the arrest of a pervert in the sand dunes along way from their house and 7 years after the release of their daughter’s killer.  Why?  They give that talking dish rag Debnam the opportunity to grandstand and verbal the Labor Government about it but you have to ask for other than political point scoring why does this story need airing once again?  In the meantime, they harass now an old lady with her photos and her memories and now I realise how truly awful their life has been.