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Fred Laufili
.
A horrific home invasion in late 1995 in Grey Lynn, Auckland.
Tried to stab an eight month old baby to death, and also stabbed the baby's mother. This came very close to being a double murder
.
.
none known
Born 1970
At large (as of February 17th 2002)
Was sentenced to 9 years 6 months in 1996, of which he has only served 6 years 4 months
Background
Article from Sunday Star Times January 2002
A woman knifed by a deranged intruder who then repeatedly stabbed her eight-month-old baby with a carving knife as she watched helplessly is fighting his release from jail next month. Fred Laufili, 31, will be freed from Auckland prison at Paremoremo on February 17 but his victim says she wants the mental health system to guarantee that he is safe.
She has warned MPs from Phil Goff down of her fears about Laufili, saying the system is ill equipped to supervise him when he is released. "Unless a psychiatrist or another professional is prepared to stake his career that this guy can come out and live in the community and not suffer violent relapses, I want him to be in a controlled environment where there is no risk this will happen to anyone eIse"
She appeared before the parole board in December - "and I ended up a sobbing wreck" - but her lawyer says there is little that can be done because Laufili has served two-thirds of his sentence. She says if he is released on parole or even as a committed mental health patient, "this is essentially the same situation, apart from someone actually taking responsibility for making sure he takes his pills, that it was at the time of the attack".
The Privacy Act has hampered the woman' s efforts to find out about Laufili's treatment both at the time of the attack, in jail, and his present psychiatric state. He was deemed mentally disordered and not insane before he was sentenced to 9½ years' jail in 1996 - but she says this was a home invasion of the worst kind and his right to privacy ended the day he came through her son's bedroom window and stabbed them both.
"He blew our privacy, our sense of security ... our home, right out the door and we are not entitled to know how he is being handled. It is outrageous. The government doesn't pick up the pieces for any of this." The woman, who cannot be identified because of a court suppression order feels the Privacy Act has been used as a cover-up for mental health negligence. "The things we want to know pertain directly to his actions against us, particularly the handling of his mental illness."
The family's lawyer Don Mathias said victims - and the community - should be entitled to the information. "When a person like Mr Laufili commits an offence like he has he trades his right to privacy against the right of the community to be safe, and that involves the right of the community to know about his mental condition."
The horror of the crime was unimaginable, he said. The woman, her husband and child had to move from their home afterwards because they could not bear to return there. Mathias suspects Laufili will be released under conditions that he take medication as required but the victim believes that will be almost impossible to police. He was sentenced as "bad" rather than" mad" because he wore a balaclava and ran away after the attack, indicating he knew what he was doing was wrong.
"But probably in some ways he should have been sentenced as insane because he is a sick man," she said.. "The criminal system is set up to punish people for doing something bad and you are supposed to come out and lead a good wholesome Life. But he is 80% about mental health issues and 20% bad. If we had both died in that house that day -. and it is just by a fluke that we didn't - this would have led to another Mason Inquiry." The judge Dame Silvia Cartwright described the stabbing as "the ultimate nightmare". She noted that while Laufili suffered from an intermittent mental condition, there was a danger of recurrence "of this type of offending - the psychiatric report noted he suffered obsessive thoughts of homicide.
The baby was almost eviscerated in the attack, which left him with his stomach and bowel protruding through his wounds. He spent a fortnight in hospital. One wound missed his heart by about a centimetre. "When you stab a small baby with a large carving knife the chances of not doing some critical injury are slim," the mother said.
The family fought for compensation for their mental trauma, but ACC does not cover mental injury or post traumatic stress. The woman's coverage was limited to 80% of her past year's earnings - which were negligible because she had been on maternity leave for most of that time. She received an allowance for a nanny but nothing for her psychological injuries.
Specialist psychiatrist Ian Goodwin, who treated the woman for two years, says she suffered clear-cut post traumatic stress disorder. "A lot of people claim it after the cat dies, but jt wasn't designed for that. She had intrusive images and became extraordinarily anxious and required specialist help. It is clearly an inequity in ACC coverage that individuals who suffer clear-cut mental injury should not be entitled to care." Said the woman: "What you find out as a victim is that you are on your own. We are very cynical but we are desperate. Given the state of the mental health system, his release presents a real threat to ourselves and the public.
