Dad who lost two kids to immigrant killers calls for new deportation rule

A Queensland father who lost two children to immigrant killers is calling for new laws requiring victims’ families to be notified when a murder or manslaughter offender is deported.

Michael Pye’s daughter Kristin, 25, was stabbed to death by New Zealander Tara Gilbert, then-22, after she fought back when he robbed the Brisbane adult shop where she was working in August 2008.

Seven years later his son Kieran was hacked to death by a machete during a drug robbery in front of his 19-year-old girlfriend by another New Zealand national, Tupu Sauaga, who was among three people jailed for manslaughter over the killing.

Mr Pye said the pain of losing both children in such horrific attacks was compounded by not knowing whether their killers had been deported, the told The Courier Mail.

I haven’t been told anything. Once the people that were convicted went into border force custody, I heard nothing but crickets. No sound at all, no communication,” Mr Pye said.

“We don’t know if he’s in the community. We don’t know whether, he’s been deported. It’s just, there’s no communication whatsoever.

“I look over my shoulder a bit, because at the end of the day, I’m looking at, not just my own safety, but the safety of my current wife, because they were very close with Kieren.”

Mr Pye said he wanted new legislation requiring the federal government to share deportation information with grieving families, to help give them closure and peace of mind.

“I would hope that with us speaking up it would help with the process of the ability for Border Force and the Federal Government to actually speak to us and advise us, whether it be in writing or a phone call or whatever, just to let us know where they are and what they’re doing,” he said.

Last year another Queenslander, widow Paula Seibel, spoke out in anger after discovering the unlicensed Indian immigrant driver who struck and killed her husband had still not been deported, despite automatic visa cancellation being triggered by the length of his sentence.

“I’m angry, I’m frustrated, I am all of the gamut of emotions. I want closure. I want it finished. I want him gone,” she said.

“It’s so hard to live every day knowing that he’s able to see his family, and I’m not.”

Header image: Left, right, Kristin and Kieren Pye (Facebook)

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