{"id":444144,"date":"2026-05-25T09:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T09:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/444144\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T09:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T09:03:09","slug":"parole-bid-for-jodie-hughes-after-taranaki-farmer-killing-delayed-amid-accommodation-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/444144\/","title":{"rendered":"Parole bid for Jodie Hughes after Taranaki farmer killing delayed amid accommodation issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, Hughes, who was convicted of manslaughter in relation to the death of Jacob Mills Ramsay<\/a>, 33, appeared before the Parole Board, which heard there was currently no suitable address for her to be released to.<\/p>\n

However, Hughes said she was now in a relationship with a man residing in the South Island and wished to live with him.<\/p>\n

She sought a stand-down so the eligibility of that address could be assessed.<\/p>\n

Beaten, chained and dragged<\/p>\n

Ramsay was murdered in July 2022 by his colleagues<\/a>, Candy and Ethan Webster, over money he owed, and his body was dumped in a rubbish pit at a Taranaki dairy farm.<\/p>\n

They had beaten Ramsay before Candy chained him to the back of a car by his ankle, and he and Webster dragged him for almost 1km along a gravel track.<\/p>\n

They admitted killing the father of three and were sentenced to life imprisonment.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"TaranakiTaranaki farm worker Jacob Ramsay was murdered by his colleagues in July 2022. Photo \/ Tara Shaskey<\/p>\n

Hughes, who was in a relationship with Candy at the time, was charged alongside them but was acquitted of murder at a trial.<\/p>\n

However, she was found guilty of manslaughter and wounding Ramsay with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and was jailed for five years and six months.<\/p>\n

The Crown argued that while Hughes did not physically assault Ramsay, she was \u201cvery much\u201d involved in Candy\u2019s violence towards him, encouraging the attack and preventing others from intervening.<\/p>\n

She was angry Ramsay had not repaid her and Candy the money he owed them and before his death, she broke into his home and stole two of his TVs.<\/p>\n

\u2018Real reservations\u2019<\/p>\n

At last week\u2019s hearing, the Parole Board heard Hughes has made \u201csignificant positive progress\u201d in her rehabilitation, was regularly attending counselling and had completed programmes, including those to help her manage her emotions and conflict. <\/p>\n

She believed prison was not helping her progress in \u201cbeing a better person\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis time coming in, I am familiar and comfortable. I feel like a lot of the work I was doing while out on parole has just been put on hold,\u201d she told the board.<\/p>\n

\"EthanEthan Webster (centre) and William Candy (right) pleaded guilty to murdering Jacob Ramsay. Photo \/ Tara Shaskey<\/p>\n

\u201cThough I do not feel like a failure this time and I do believe I can do it again, pick back up where I left off. I still feel good in myself and proud of the progress I have made.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Hughes labelled the reason for her recall as being an \u201caccommodation issue\u201d, the board was quick to point out that the heart of it was her struggle to manage difficult emotions.<\/p>\n

Board member Professor Susanna Every-Palmer acknowledged Hughes had been focused on improving in this area. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy it\u2019s particularly important is that it was tied up in the index offending,\u201d Every-Palmer told Hughes.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeading up to Mr Ramsay\u2019s death, you were experiencing a lot of very strong negative emotions of anger, jealousy, you were distressed, and that all culminated in the events that led to his house being burgled and his death.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was also acknowledged that the indirect contact with Candy was an issue.<\/p>\n

Hughes said contact had come to an end.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Panel convenor Neville Trendle said the board had \u201creal reservations\u201d about the suitability of Hughes\u2019 plan to live with her partner but told her it would be assessed.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntested relationships generally are something the board doesn\u2019t normally encourage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Trendle said Hughes would return before the board in two months and if the proposed address was approved, it may be developed through guided releases.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you could expect the board to look at that as a step-by-step process because if it were in front of us today, I don\u2019t think you\u2019d find us going along with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tara Shaskey is an assistant editor and reporter for the Open Justice team. She joined NZME in 2022 and has worked as a journalist since 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Friday, Hughes, who was convicted of manslaughter in relation to the death of Jacob Mills Ramsay, 33,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[62925,74,534,67650,1040,42676,634,10669,55414,13845,12026,2082,5630,2205,1452,105092,11156,9933,3234,6178,4275,111,43,139,69,2847,47839,8442,13181,12971,16715,4741],"class_list":["post-444144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-accommodation","tag-after","tag-amid","tag-beaten","tag-bid","tag-chained","tag-death","tag-delayed","tag-dragged","tag-eight","tag-farmer","tag-for","tag-hughes","tag-involved","tag-issues","tag-jodie","tag-killing","tag-later","tag-months","tag-mother","tag-murder","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-only","tag-parole","tag-prison","tag-released","tag-returned","tag-taranaki","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}