Tony Robertson committed seriously disturbed sexual and sexually motivated offences against children and was sentenced to eight years prison. It may well be that he would have committed the horrific running down, injuring, rape and murder of Blessie Gotingco after his release if given half a chance. However, it may also be that if he had been able to get on with his life after his sentence as used to happen, he would have found some worthwhile way of supporting himself and choosing a better life. Even if he committed further sexual offending this would probably not have been fatal and he would soon have been caught and imprisoned for another long duration, to the relief of the community. Instead, what happened was that on the basis of fortune telling about his future behaviour, after he had served his entire 8 years for his previous crimes he was given a further 10-year sentence of ‘extended supervision’ and he gave up caring about anything.

As is the case with Protection Orders, the naive belief is that by depriving men of their civil rights and hammering men with unjust methods of attempted state control, this will increase safety. That always seemed unlikely. Men (and it has only ever been men) who have served their entire sentence and are then sentenced again for the same crimes to another 10 years of constant close and imposing surveillance and intimidation by agents of the state, in which where they live, what they do, whom they have contact with and most everything else about their lives is controlled and restricted by those state agents, can be expected to be very angry about this. It’s most unlikely those men will develop any sense of belonging, respect or appreciation regarding the society in which they live. Also, they can be expected to feel backed into a corner, defeated, hopeless about their ability ever to live a tolerable life, . Under those circumstances a good proportion of men will give up any idea of achieving an acceptable life.

Tony Robertson gave up. He decided to go all out in one last and ultimate splash of self-pleasuring exploitation, knowing he would be caught. He knew that by cutting off his ankle bracelet he was certain to go back to prison for a long time. He no longer cared.

Under feminist demands that men be treated with increasing injustice and repression, Western countries have embarked upon a dangerous cycle of provoking men into worse reactions that are then seen to require even greater increases in repressive dehumanization. We are headed for a situation in which men are treated increasingly like Hitler’s Jews, Mugabe’s Whites, Saddam Hussein’s Kurds and the ‘witches’ of Salem. This mentality has already become so extreme that our parliament is currently seriously considering a law that enables women to deliberately kill men in their sleep without consequence.

The inquiry into Tony Robertson’s case should look carefully at the role of the 10-year extended supervision order (ESO) in contributing to this terrible outcome. It should look carefully at the effects of treating men badly in general. Perhaps if ESOs were for 1 year at a time and could only be renewed with good cause, they would work more safely. Perhaps if the Probation Service were legally required to work cooperatively, respectfully and supportively with those on ESOs rather than behaving unreasonably and superstitiously as they currently often do, a system like this would work more safely. Just as the role of the Protection Order itself needs to be assessed for provoking many murders and acts of extreme violence that otherwise may not have happened, the same investigation needs to be done regarding ESOs.

This is not about excusing Tony Robertson. Regardless of the provocation his behaviour was barbaric and totally unacceptable, and he really doesn’t deserve to be housed and fed by our society any more at all. But if the ESO contributed to his latest offence it’s important to ensure this doesn’t keep happening for other men. Treating men fairly and respectfully will always ultimately achieve a safer outcome on average and a better functioning society than what we are getting from our current misandrist direction.