Parole Board declined <\/a>to release him on two occasions.<\/p>\nA year later, Skinner, now 54, reappeared before the Parole Board in August. <\/p>\n
His lawyer Marie Dyhrberg KC highlighted his good behaviour over 10 years with no breaches of prison rules. <\/p>\n
Skinner had also completed drug and alcohol treatment, five years of counselling with a private psychologist, and participated in the prison \u2018work to release\u2019 programme.<\/p>\n
The Parole Board questioned Skinner about his quick relapse to criminal offending the last time he was released from prison.<\/p>\n
Not long before shooting Don Wilkinson, Skinner had served a 4 \u00bd year prison sentence for manufacturing methamphetamine.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe acknowledged that he has spent a life living a double existence,\u201d the Parole Board said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe returned to using and manufacturing methamphetamine very quickly on parole.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said today that things would be different this time around given the treatment he has completed. He said he is a different man now.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Ian]()
Ian Lindsay Clegg, left, and John Ward Skinner at their trial in the High Court at Auckland in 2010. Photo \/NZPA<\/p>\n
Skinner received a positive report from prison staff, and was assessed by the psychologist as posing a low-risk of violent offending. He had a place to live and an offer of employment.<\/p>\n
The Parole Board agreed to release Skinner in September under a number of strict conditions. <\/p>\n
These include an electronically monitored curfew between 9pm and 6am at the approved address in Auckland, no drugs or alcohol, no contact with his co-offender, and ongoing counselling.<\/p>\n
These conditions will remain in place for life and any breaches will result in Skinner being recalled to prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was very serious offending. We do think that, given his long history of offending, Mr Skinner will need to be carefully monitored on release,\u201d the Parole Board said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, we are satisfied that given the treatment that Mr Skinner has completed in prison, his release proposal \u2026 he will not pose an undue risk to the safety of the community if released on parole on tight conditions.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jared Savage covers crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organised crime. He joined the Herald in 2006 and has won a dozen journalism awards in that time, including twice being named Reporter of the Year. He is also the author of Gangland, Gangster\u2019s Paradise and Underworld.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sprung by their target Skinner, and his associate Iain Clegg, the pair of police officers fled on foot.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15140,74,6128,1558,4057,2372,3595,4194,27834,2082,71,42,5126,1868,4275,43768,43,10932,47839,675,8442,13181,7819,47838,40,38,41,39,47840,19791,28439,1530],"class_list":["post-57320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-15140","tag-after","tag-bars","tag-been","tag-behind","tag-board","tag-by","tag-cook","tag-don","tag-for","tag-from","tag-headlines","tag-john","tag-meth","tag-murder","tag-murdered","tag-news","tag-officer","tag-parole","tag-police","tag-prison","tag-released","tag-shooting","tag-skinner","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-undercover","tag-ward","tag-wilkinson","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57320","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=57320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}