Forgiveness? Not in 'real world'

A Christmas 2005 photograph of Sophie Elliott (centre) with her family, (from left) brother Chris, father Gil, mother Lesley and Sophie's then boyfriend Chris Laing. Absent: Sophie's other brother Nick. Photo supplied.

This is a commentary partially in response to an article written by Colin James

(ODT, Opinion, 27.12.16). Mr James' article was about a specific case and what he says about anger, trust and forgiveness in that case in my opinion does not apply to many other situations.

Mr James article was about the response of the daughter (Jo Kukutai) of an elderly couple who were murdered by a ''psychologically unstable'' killer who had already killed his mother and severely injured his father. The killer then killed himself.

Although it was a very unfortunate and tragic situation, the killer was dead and therefore, apart from the coroner, the criminal justice system was not going to be involved.

Jo Kukutai forgave the killer of her parents saying that (according to Mr James' article) ''having anger and resentment doesn't bring them back or fix anything'' and ''there's enough hatred in the world and that wasn't going to help us. The best way was to forgive and to forgive quickly''.

Mr James' response to this was: ''would you trust a person who never stopped demanding revenge after an unspeakable act? . . . or would you trust Jo Kukutai, who chose forgiveness and to think of her parents' killer as a 'real person'''. Whatever she means by a real person.

My experience and that of many others I have talked to both in the Compassionate Friends organisation comprising people whose child has died) and the many people in the Sensible Sentencing Trust, is that forgiveness is something they would never entertain. Why would you forgive someone who has murdered your loved one and destroyed your family's life?

In this commentary, I am going to talk about my daughter Sophie and the grief and stages of grief our family and friends have gone through and continue to go through. In many ways our case is similar to the way other families of murdered children have been treated by the system.

Grief, however, is a part of life and it does not only concern death. It may be to do with a health issue, losing a job, a marriage breakup, a valued pet dying and so on.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her book, On Death and Dying, says there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Others have added shock and guilt.

Let's start with anger because anger is basically what Mr James' article is about. Anger is part of the grieving process. It may not be an emotion that lasts a long time, but there are a number of things that make a grieving person angry. Some anger is misdirected because the trauma of losing a child scrambles the mind for awhile, sometimes for a very long time.

Our family were angry many times. At the large number of court hearings, the difficulty trying to get to see the prosecutor(s), the transfer of the trial to Christchurch from Dunedin, the fact the trial was postponed twice when family and friends had already booked flights and accommodation.

We were angry by the way we were ignored by the justice system, in the way that the defence lawyers besmirched our daughter's character, the use of her personal diary in court. There were many other things that we were angry about, none the least was the awful sudden death of our daughter. The financial cost to us and our family and friends when the murderer's costs (legal aid) were paid for by the taxpayer.

Anger is mostly a temporary emotion, but is definitely part of the grieving process. Denial I guess is when you simply cannot accept you will never see that person - your child - again. Bargaining is a bit esoteric, but may be to do with making peace with God. Depression is pretty obvious and may last forever. Acceptance is when you come to the conclusion in your own mind that what has happened is final.

Shock is the first emotion. The shock of learning what has happened is just so traumatic. You cannot think straight. Guilt is when you (almost invariably wrongly) feel there should have been something you could have done to prevent the tragedy.

There is so much to do. People to be informed of the death. There is a funeral to organise, eulogies to prepare. Time off work to organise. The list is pretty well endless.

Mr James says victims families make many ''angry statements outside courtrooms or in their court statements'' and that ''they risk imprisonment in their anger''. I strongly disagree with his stance on this. What could he possibly mean by risking imprisonment? The Bill of Rights gives us ''freedom of expression'' and victim impact statements are carefully monitored by police for adverse content.

Anger is a legitimate part of the grief process, perhaps a small part, but trust is an odd thing to dwell on and forgiveness of the murderer is never entertained in the real world.

-Gil Elliott, of Dunedin, is the father of Sophie Elliott, who was murdered on January 9, 2008.