3 Apr 2012

Police say lessons learnt from killing

3:12 pm on 3 April 2012

Police say they have learned lessons from a murder in Hamilton in which a mental health patient escaped from hospital and bashed her neighbour to death.

Christine Morris, 42, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing Diane White two years ago.

Police visited Ms White, 53, after the escape because she had previously been threatened by Morris.

But they then left to go on patrol and within about half an hour Ms White was dead.

Ms White's partner, Gary Chadderton, blames her death on failures by the police and mental health services.

Superintendent Win van der Velde says police have learned from this incident and they could have done things differently.