Western Daily Press (Saturday)
‘If you take a life, then you should be jailed for rest of yours’
THE father of murdered Gloucester hairdresser Hollie Gazzard has praised the decision to hand down a whole life sentence to the man who raped and murdered Sarah Everard.
Nick Gazzard said it was the right thing to do, but added that he believed anyone who committed homicide should be punished with a whole life sentence because that is what the families of the victims get when their loved one is murdered.
His comments followed former Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens being jailed on Thursday for the whole of his life for his crime. The judge decided Couzens would die in prison – the first police officer to receive this sentence.
Hollie Gazzard was only 20 years old when she was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend in the Gloucester hair salon where she was working.
Her murderer, Asher Maslin, who committed the horrific crime in 2014 after she ended their relationship, was sentenced to a minimum of 24 years behind bars.
Commenting on Couzens’s sentence, Mr Gazzard said: “For me it’s the right decision; he was in a position of authority, one who you should have trust in as a police officer, and he committed a heinous crime under the badge of a police officer, so I think that sentence is absolutely right.”
Lord Justice Fulford emphasised that Couzens’s role as a police officer was crucial to the decision.
However, Mr Gazzard said: “I personally think that whole life sentences should be across anyone who commits homicide because if you take someone’s life away, then you should have your life taken away. I don’t mean in terms of execution, but you should be locked up for the rest of your life.
“I think that is one of the frustrations with the families that go through this, that the convicted person can have a life sentence with a minimum term but can be out within a short amount of time afterwards.
“Giving someone a whole life sentence after the actual event doesn’t bring the victim back. Sarah Everard will never come back, her family will never get her back, so for them – and for us with Hollie – the sentence doesn’t matter, to a certain extent, because we will never have them back.
“This does send a message out that these types of things are not acceptable in society, but I think women
Giving someone a whole life sentence after the actual event doesn’t bring the victim back. Sarah Everard will never come back, her family will never get her back, so for them – and for us with Hollie – the sentence doesn’t matter, to a certain extent, because we will never have them back NICK GAZZARD
particularly will be looking for these things to stop happening in the first place.”
Following the attack on Sarah Everard, tens of thousands of people downloaded a personal safety app created in the wake of Hollie’s murder. The Hollie Guard app was downloaded between 60,000 and 80,000 times in the days following the horrific crime.
“That tells you how worried people were about their personal safety after Sarah Everard’s murder, and how important it is that we tackle these issues to prevent things like this happening in the first place,” Mr Gazzard added.
The Hollie Gazzard Trust was set up in her memory to combat domestic abuse through schools and education. Through it, the Hollie Guard app was launched that turns a smartphone into a personal alarm and
incident recorder, and it currently has more than 300,000 users.
“A lot of work and effort has to go in to prevent these things happening and I think this is the message that individuals will want to hear.
“What’s being done about stopping this happening again in the future?”
However, Mr Gazzard said he did not agree with the recent suggestion of a night-time curfew for men.
“We need to tackle this in all sorts of different ways, but putting a curfew on men isn’t one of them.
“Is that curfew going to apply to me, yet I’ve done nothing wrong? I think you are throwing the net too wide there – more than 99% of men are law-abiding citizens. It’s the wrong thing to do.
“We’ve got to have this cultural shift in our society and that starts with education, not just of young people, but everyone.”