Ross Giblin/Stuff Smith then sought leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. In their decision, Justices William Young, Susan Glazebrook and Mark O’Regan found there was evidence that a published interview would cause distress to Smith’s victims. They upheld the Court of Appeal’s decision that withholding approval for the interview was not a “disproportionate limit on the Smith’s right to freedom of expression”, when balanced against the impact on the victims. In 1996, he was sentenced to life in prison for murder, paedophile offending, aggravated burglary and kidnapping. He had molested a 13-year-old boy over a three-year period, and later stabbed the boy s father to death.
RSA triple killer William Bell loses appeal after allegedly planning to take female prison guard hostage
11 Mar, 2021 05:20 AM
4 minutes to read
William Bell sought a judicial review of decisions to increase his security classifcation after an alleged plot to take a female prison officer hostage. Photo / Alex Burton
William Bell sought a judicial review of decisions to increase his security classifcation after an alleged plot to take a female prison officer hostage. Photo / Alex Burton
NZ Herald
Convicted triple killer William Bell has lost a legal appeal after allegations that he was planning to take a female prison officer hostage as part of a bid to escape from Paremoremo Prison.
DAVID WHITE/STUFF
Justice Mark Woolford dismissed the judicial review. The court heard in August 2019, Bell was removed from his role in the prison’s new state-of-the-art kitchen, where he had been working towards an NCEA qualification. The court heard there was an allegation he was going to poison staff. Shortly after that incident a fellow prisoner called Crimestoppers, alleging Bell had plotted to take a female staff worker hostage in the prison laundry in order to escape. Bell was then reclassified from low-medium risk to a maximum security prisoner. However, he said Corrections had previously described him as “well-behaved” and he was not considered a violent prisoner.
Wayne Drought/NZPA
Graeme Burton murdered two men in the Wellington area and attempted to murder a third in prison. (File photo)
Notorious killer, Graeme William Burton, who was part of a mass-strip search at Auckland Prison in 2016, has been awarded $1000 compensation. Burton killed lighting technician Paul Anderson in Wellington in 1992 and served 14 years of a life prison term before being paroled. He was out of prison only months when he went on a crime spree, leading to the fatal shooting of Karl Kuchenbecker in the Wainuiomata hills in 2007. Burton is now serving a life sentence with a minimum non-parole period of 26 years.
Philip Smith, powerhouse Broadway executive, dies at 89 of COVID Tim Balk
Philip Smith, the beloved Brooklyn-born theater enthusiast who climbed from movie usher to the chair of the Shubert Organization, the largest Broadway theater company, died Friday at a Manhattan hospital. He was 89.
The cause of Smith’s death at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center was complications of COVID-19, said Bill Evans, a spokesperson for Shubert.
Smith, a burly Broadway powerhouse, retired in June after more than two decades as the president of Shubert and more than 60 years in the New York theater world.
He said the coronavirus crisis, which shuttered the Theater District in March, created a natural time for him to step down from his perch at the company, which operates 17 Broadway theaters. Robert Wankel succeeded him as Shubert’s chair.