A family lawyer says courts need to consider stricter penalties for people who breach protection orders, after two children were killed when their mother's estranged husband came back to the house armed with a shotgun.
Bradley Livingstone, who was nine, and six-year-old Ellen Livingstone were killed at the St Leonard’s house on Wednesday night. A 51-year-old Milton prison worker appears to have then turned the gun on himself.
The man had twice breached a protection order that the children's mother, Katharine Livingstone, took out last year. Police said he was given diversion on 7 August last year and on 14 September was discharged without conviction. They are also investigating how he was able to go to the house with a gun he didn't have a licence for.
Radio New Zealand understands the two breaches were phone calls the man made to the woman, and he did not make explicit threats during those calls. However, one of the charges was for behaving in a way that amounted to psychological abuse.
