Claims that worst killers not covered under proposed three strikes legislation...

Claims that worst killers not covered under three strikes law...
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The proposed three-strikes law would have saved murder victims like Urban Hoglin and Heidi Paakkonen back in 1989. A proposed three strikes law would have done nothing to prevent some of New Zealand's most notorious killings, critics say.

The new legislation, to be introduced with the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill, will see a criminal convicted of a third qualifying offence jailed for the maximum term, without the possibility of parole.

Under the law, a life sentence - imposed for murder and manslaughter - would mean just that.

But none of the country's 20 worst murderers - those handed among the longest jail sentences in New Zealand history - would have been stopped by the proposed legislation, the Weekend Herald has learned.

And that includes four of the worst:

William Bell, who is serving a minimum 30 years for the Mt Wellington triple murders of 2001, double killer Graeme Burton, convicted rapist and murderer Liam Reid, and prison-van killer George Charlie Baker.

The Corrections Department has confirmed none of them - despite extensive criminal histories, including in the case of Burton more than 100 previous convictions - had committed earlier offences that would have put them in the three strikes category.

Acknowledgements: MSN News