escalating violence in our community Become a member of the Sensible Sentencing Trust

Mouseover links for full page descriptions

Offender Databases Robert Winterburn

Robert Craig Winterburn

Alias

.

Offences

Wounded a fellow inmate with intent to cause grevious bodily harm in December 1996
Also killed another man in a fight and attempted murder of his partner
Extensive previous criminal history

Victims

.

Offender Affiliations

.

Gang affiliations

Mongrel Mob

Age

Born 1967

Current Location

unknown

Parole/Release Dates

Sentenced to 10 years with a cumulative 7 year term in December 1997
Unsuccessfully appealed this sentence October 1998

Background
The Press, Christchurch, December 26 1997
A Paremoremo Prison inmate who stabbed another prisoner several times has had seven years added to the 10 years he is serving. In the High Court in Auckland, Justice Potter declined a Crown application for preventive detention, which would have put 30-year- old Robert Craig Winterburn behind bars indefinitely. But Justice Potter said she did not consider a total of 17 years inappropriate given the seriousness of the various offences.

The judge warned Winterburn that if he appeared again the court would have no option but to impose preventive detention. Preventive detention has been given only once before for violent offending, although it is not uncommon in sexual cases. Winterburn, who was found guilty by a jury of stabbing Victor Morrison five times last December, was serving a total of 10 years jail at the time for offences including the manslaughter of a man in a fight and attempting to murder his partner.

Howard Lawry, appearing for the Crown, told the court that Winterburn, who had a long list of previous convictions -- mostly associated with his connections with the Mongrel Mob, was a recidivist who posed a very real risk to the public on his release. Despite the constraints of being in prison, a previous warning about preventive detention, the deterrence of a long sentence, or counselling to learn to deal with confrontational situations, he was willing to turn to ''the old ways'' of behaving if necessary.

Defence counsel Mike Levett told Justice Potter that, without seeking to justify what happened, it was ''part of the prison culture, part of the mores within the prison, a self-regulating pattern within the prison'' and did not warrant a preventive sentence to protect the public. Winterburn had told a Department of Corrections psychologist, Margaretanne Roger, that whenever violence occurred in jail ''retaliation must be immediate and sufficient to keep oneself alive''

---

Corrections and Additional Information
We endeavour to make this database as accurate as possible, but we are at the mercy of whatever information we can find in various online and offline archives. We rely on the public - that is, people like you - to fill in the gaps that we cannot. If you wish to submit additional information or a correction to this file CLICK HERE . Privacy: Trust policy is that all sources are treated as strictly confidential unless we are explicitly told otherwise. If you wish to see a file removed from this database certain conditions must be met by the offender set out HERE Note that this does NOT apply for those that are the primary offender in a murder, rape, or any sexual offending involving minors. We do not enter into correspondence regarding the guilt/innocence of offenders. Such correspondence is not responded to, especially if the offender concerned has a number of prior convictions

Back to Top