Mark Lundy denied release as he remains an undue risk: parole board

Mark Lundy will spend at least another two years in prison after he was denied parole in his latest bid for release.

Lundy, 64, has served more than 20 years for the murder of his wife Christine and daughter Amber in August 2000 – a crime he still vehemently denies.

Appearing before the parole board on Thursday, the twice-convicted double-murderer maintained his innocence, which contributed to the board’s decision to decline an early release.

Lundy told the board he would go to his “deathbed” saying he did not kill his family, but this prevented him from completing a sufficient safety plan for his release.

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Parole board chairman Sir Ron Young said the plan would give Lundy strategies to manage himself in the community, but his denial meant he did not have that in place.

“It’s not really a safety plan because you deny your offending.”

But Lundy told the board he had made progress since his first parole appearance in 2022 and had created a safety plan based on “keeping me out of prison”.

”Primarily the plan is to stop me from being recalled, it identifies the problems that I will face and how I’m going to work on it.”

But Young said the board could proceed only on the basis Lundy was guilty of murder, one which involved a high-degree of planning.

“It was planned not only to have an alibi but also at the scene to try and effectively mislead the police into thinking something else had happened. It was an extremely brutal murder of the woman, we were told, that you loved, and had a child with, and had a good marriage.

“It seems probable that your daughter saw what was happening and that you killed her because she could have given evidence against you revealing that you were the murderer, so you were prepared to sacrifice her life to ensure that you were not convicted.”

Young said the board needed to understand “what drove that”.

That was difficult to answer, Lundy said, because he did not have a “motive for something I didn’t do”.

His lawyer Julie-Ann Kincade KC said Lundy was a suitable candidate for parole who had maintained a minimum-security classification in prison.

He had completed a six-month drug treatment programme and was described as a “polite and helpful” prisoner who had “worked outside the wire”.

She said Lundy was at low risk of committing interpersonal violence and ”well-prepared to return to the community”.

”There’s nothing more that can be recommended to progress his rehabilitation or reintegration.”

Lundy’s denial was not a reason to keep him in prison, she said, as he had no previous convictions for violence and any concerns about his release could be alleviated with conditions such as a curfew or electronic monitoring.

But Young said the board was satisfied Lundy remained an undue risk and there were a “number of worrying reasons to be concerned”.

His sister Caryl Jones, who attended the hearing, said she was disappointed with the decision.

A group of Lundy’s supporters, FACTUAL (For Amber and Christine, Truth Uncovered about Lundys), issued a statement following the hearing, and also expressed disappointment the board decided Lundy’s refusal to admit guilt meant he must remain in jail.

“For 23 years, since tragically losing his family, Mark has vehemently maintained his innocence and suffered the injustice and indignity of false incarceration.”

Lundy was now being forced into the ultimate Catch-22 situation, the group said, “potentially forcing the convicted to lie in order to get release”.

“Mark has never lied, and never will. Not even to gain his freedom.”

The group said the fight for truth “is far from over”, and the case was being considered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigated potential wrongful convictions.

“We are forever hopeful that once again, Mark will get the opportunity to profess his innocence, and that the police will be forced to go back to the beginning and properly look at the many unexplained anomalies.”

Kincade said she was disappointed with the decision, but would wait to see the full judgment before deciding whether to appeal it to the High Court.

“Mark made it clear in the hearing, as he has done consistently for 23 years, that he will not change his position – that he is innocent of those crimes.”

Kincade said Lundy had been put in an impossible situation, whereby refusing to admit guilt was a barrier to his release from jail.

“He is prepared to stay in prison, if that is the criteria.”

Lundy was first convicted of the killings in 2002 but was released from prison on bail after a successful appeal in 2013.

He later returned to prison in 2015 after he was found guilty at a retrial.

Christine and Amber were found hacked to death in their Palmerston North home on August 30, 2000, and Lundy was charged with their murders in 2001.

A key piece of evidence used to convict him were the stains found on his shirt containing central nervous system tissue and Christine’s DNA.

Lundy was found guilty at a trial in March 2002 on the premise he drove from Petone to Palmerston North, violently killed Christine and Amber, tampered with the scene, disposed of his bloody clothing and returned to Petone – within three hours during rush-hour traffic.

But, Lundy appealed his case to the Privy Council in 2013 and a retrial was ordered.

The Crown changed its position for that trial and said Lundy made the 300-kilometre round trip in the dead of the night.

The Crown also had a second test done on the shirt, which found the tissue was more likely than not to have been human rather than from an animal.

Lundy was again convicted and resumed his life sentence.

In 2018, he went to the Court of Appeal, which found the second tissue test inadmissible, but ruled other evidence made him guilty regardless.

The Supreme Court upheld that ruling in 2019.