AUSTRALIA: OFFICIAL REHABILITATION FICTION ABOUT BRUTAL MURDERER

A fiction dangerous to the public

One of the teenage killers of great-grandmother Marie Greening Zidan has been freed from jail in time for the Christmas break. The Herald Sun understands the man, now 21, was released yesterday after serving little more than six years for the brutal attack. But he can keep his past secret from his new neighbours, employers and workmates because of court orders designed to protect his identity.

He was 15 when he and a friend, 16, broke into Mrs Zidan's Seaford home in 2000 and bashed, choked and sexually assaulted her as her intellectually disabled son lay terrified in another room. They were jailed for nine years with a minimum of six after striking a plea deal with prosecutors for their murder charges to be reduced to manslaughter – so neither ever had to admit who actually killed Mrs Zidan.

Bids by the Herald Sun to name the killer as he returns to the community have been rejected by the courts, which have deemed the pair's rehabilitation more important than the public's right to know who they are. The family of Mrs Zidan, 73, declined to comment on the man's release but have fought for years for the right to name and shame the killers. The second youth has also applied for parole.

The man released yesterday is from a known criminal family and has shown no remorse, even taunting his victim's family with lewd phone messages while behind bars. One of the killers threatened staff at a youth detention centre during his sentence, saying people would "get hurt" if they interrupted his lap swimming or table-tennis. The Herald Sun also revealed in February that one of the two youths was allowed out 85 times for family visits, trips to the dentist and to get a learner's permit. The two had access to swimming pools, big-screen televisions and computer games while Mrs Zidan's son Peter was forced into a nursing home.

Mrs Zidan's daughter Janine Greening now helps other families affected by crime and wants a public register of sex offenders of all ages, including the two killers. As vice-president of Victoria Homicide Victims Support Group, Ms Greening was so disappointed by Supreme Court Justice Bill Gillard's refusal to lift the suppression order on the pair in September that she wrote to him for evidence of the pair's rehabilitation. "I am worried about public safety, as the youths have been protected all along," she said in a letter to MPs. "You cannot be rehabilitated if you have no remorse." The family's plight was yesterday echoed by retired MP Robin Cooper, whose elderly mother was killed in tragically similar circumstances by a teenager in 1977. "The rights of 99 per cent of the community should be put ahead of the one per cent who commit the offences," Mr Cooper said.

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