Two killers who shouldn’t get parole

The Herald reports on Scott Watson:

A video of convicted murderer Scott Watson attacking another prisoner was played to the Parole Board as it met to decide if he should be released from jail after 27 years.

In the video, several inmates are seen socialising and playing cards at tables in a prison unit. 

Watson steps up behind another man and grabs him around the neck and upper torso from behind, pulling him off a bench.

As the man tries to get up, Watson pushes him back to the ground.

After the man manages to get to his feet, another prisoner steps forward and punches the victim in the face.

That’s a pretty good sign that Watson shouldn’t be released. Unprovoked violence.

And they also report on Clayton Weatherston:

The reports referred to his diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder – specifically characterised as “gross narcissism”.

They also mentioned “psychopathy” and categorised Weatherston as being a high risk of reoffending. 

Weatherston said he was “not convinced” by the diagnosis as it “overlooked” other positive and pro-social aspects of his personality. 

“I don’t subscribe to the severe narcissistic personality disorder opined by [one psychologist in particular],” he told the board.

This should ring huge flashing bells. A refusal to accept he has a problem.

He was asked directly to explain why he mutilated Elliott’s body after he had killed her by stabbing her 216 times.

“With Sophie, a lot of things were going on in the relationship … I was full of an uncontrollable rage,” he said.

What is important to recall is he didn’t do this in a flash of anger, say in the midst of an argument. He went around to her house the day before she was leaving Dunedin and took a knife with him so he could slaughter and mutilate her while her family tried to get into the room. His actions were not rage of the moment, but a psychological need to destroy here because she broke up with him.

“Reflecting some more, it was just an ‘f you’ about everything about her, and about that I’m ashamed. It was incredibly misguided.

Misguided? Everything about his testimony screams that he should not be released.

n his thousand hours of reading he had come across a book with a message that was helping him navigate his “post-offending” life.

“S*** happens, and we have to drop anchor and deal with it,” he mused.

Again this is so minimising. Shit didn’t happen to him. He slaughtered and brutalised a young woman because she broke up with him.

Sophie’s father Gil Elliott shared his submission with the Herald – saying he wanted the panel to understand “how awful Clayton Robert Weatherston is”.

“As a narcissist [he] is never likely to change his ways – is incapable, in fact, of changing his ways,” he said in the submission, which he penned on what should have been his daughter’s 40th birthday last year.

Listen to Gil.