Continuing upset at the lengthy delays in the case against the man who killed Kim Meredith has prompted her parents to write about the shattering experience.
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Bob and June Meredith revealed this week they planned on releasing the book in Albury next January.
The Merediths initially had hoped the book might have been ready to be launched to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Kim’s death.
Graham Mailes killed Kim, 19, in the early hours of March 23, 1996, as she walked between two Albury hotels. Kim suffered two deep wounds to her throat in the attack, which shocked police for its ferocity.
After seven years in the court system, Mailes was eventually sentenced to a “limiting period” of 25 years by Justice James Wood on August 1, 2003, after a Supreme Court jury found him “responsible” for Kim’s death.
Mr Meredith said the decision to write the book “started with anger at the legal system”.
“We were frustrated. It started with the first committal hearing and it went on and on,” he said.
The matters against Mailes began with a committal hearing on December 2, 1996, though there were significant delays until a fitness to stand trial hearing was held in Sydney in 1998.
Mailes was found fit to stand trial by a jury and found guilty in a Supreme Court trial at Wagga in 1999, sentenced to 25 years with a minimum of 18 years.
An appeal was mentioned nine times before a retrial was ordered two years later, then in 2002 a jury decided he was unfit for trial.
In early 1998, then NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery QC, now a University of Sydney academic, criticised delays besetting the case at the time.
“The delays are entirely due to the Legal Aid Commission. We sympathise with the Merediths,” he said.
Mr Cowdery told The Border Mail this week he stood by those comments, though Mailes was still entitled to procedural fairness.
“Procedural laws are there for good reason and have to be applied,” he said. “Sometimes that can lead to frustration.”
Mr Meredith said it was a good thing that committals were now handled in NSW by way of a hand-up brief of evidence, given Mailes’ committal went for about two weeks and was “hugely frustrating and emotionally upsetting”.
The Merediths also expressed their dismay at Mailes going missing in November before police eventually found him at Orange.
Mr Meredith said they were convinced Mailes would kill again, “as much as you can be. And so were two psychiatrists and two judges.
“Kim was butchered.”
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