Father of murder victim ‘relaxed’ as killer released
The father of Helen Meads - shot dead by her husband in 2009 - said he is “relaxed” about the release of the man who killed his daughter, multi-millionaire racehorse breeder Greg Meads.
Meads has been released on parole after finally admitting he deliberately pulled the trigger - after years of claiming the gun went off accidentally.
Meads was convicted of killing his wife, Helen Meads, in 2009.
The Meads were living apart at the time of the shooting, when Greg Meads took a shotgun to the stables where Helen was and shot her in the throat, killing her instantly.
Speaking to the Waikato Times yesterday, Helen Meads’ father David White MNZM said he was “pretty relaxed about it”. White said he had followed the parole process, noting “it’s followed the rules of what’s required”.
“He is no longer a risk to society, and I agree,” he said. He also gave some insight into how he was able to reach that state of mind.
“No matter what I think about it, nothing is going to bring Helen back. All we’ll do dwelling on it is give us ulcers, and I’ve no intention of letting that happen.”
White, who was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the prevention of family violence at the King’s Birthday Honours in 2023, also said he was working on a “huge campaign to wake the country up” on the issue of domestic violence. He was tight-lipped about the details, saying he is awaiting a response to an Official Information Act request from Parliament, but did say “you will be disturbed”.
He also said he believed the issue of family violence has worsened.
“Since Covid, people in general have become angrier, tempers are shorter, violence is quicker, what victims are suffering is more vicious.”
White did offer some optimism, however, saying he believed “absolutely” there are solutions to the issue.
He also shared what Governor General Dame Alcyion Cynthia Kiro told him when presenting him with his MZNZ: “Don’t put it in the sock draw.”
“And I haven’t,” he said.
The trial and release
At trial in 2011, Meads’ defence was that the gun had gone off accidentally and he had not deliberately pulled the trigger.
The jury did not believe him and, after just three hours of deliberation, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of 11 years before parole.
Meads was said to be worth around $40m at the time of the killing, according to Helen's father, David White.
After serving more than 11 years in a minimum security prison, Meads was released this week on February 19, after a New Zealand parole board hearing concluded he was at “low risk of re-offending”.
He had now “come to terms” with the killing, although he “maintained a denial for many years, being unable apparently to face the fact that as someone with a self-image of a good, law-abiding person he had killed his wife,” parole board chairman Sir Ron Young wrote in the report on his release.
Meads had maintained the stance that the gun went off by mistake for more than eleven years in prison, and was previously denied parole last year - and in 2021 - for maintaining “that this was simply an accident”.
After seeing psychologists, Meads had now accepted that “he had deliberately pulled the trigger and he had murdered his wife,” Young wrote in the report, adding “this was an extremely serious murder that arose in very worrying circumstances essentially out of the blue.”
Following the trial, White revealed he'd encouraged his daughter to leave Meads because of his abusive, violent tendencies.
Meads has been released to a family residence in Tauranga with special conditions: he is not to go to Matamata, Rotorua or Auckland, and he is forbidden to contact any victim of his offending without prior approval of his probation officer.
He must also disclose any “intimate relationship” at the earliest opportunity.
All parole conditions would be reviewed in July 2024, the report said.