Woman's plea to keep 'dangerous' brother behind bars

A woman who lost both her parents when her brother killed them says Australians should be concerned that her sibling is about to get some of his freedom back.

"He will do it again," Wendy Robinson told A Current Affair.

"(He's) very dangerous, he's scary."

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For the past eight years, the walls of Sydney's Long Bay Correctional Complex have given Robinson peace of mind while her brother Scott Settree, 54, has been locked away.

But Robinson said those prison walls have been the only thing separating her from her brother since he killed her parents Ian and Margaret.

Settree, who is a father himself, shot both his parents at point-blank range in their lounge room over an argument concerning the replacement of a $40 bottle of wine on December 14, 2014.

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Despite confessing to the shooting, Settree was found not guilty because he was mentally ill and placed within the grounds of Long Bay jail.

Settree will soon be released into the community for a day at a time with an escort."It's not okay to kill and then be rewarded with privileges, it's definitely not okay," Robinson said.

Robinson said she will never forget the phone call she received informing her of her brother's newfound privileges.

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"I got angry, my stomach got into knots," she said.

"You can't kill people and get away with it, it's just so wrong."

Settree's family will not be told when he's released, or where he will be able to go, but Robinson said she was told he may go on a "drive … to see the scenery" or on a trip to a McDonald's drive-through the next time.

"Then he could be taken to a shopping mall," Robinson said.

She fears he could progress to having non-escorted day leave where he could "walk amongst society without a criminal record".

Robinson said she wishes someone would "listen to us victims" who "know these people" before trusting them to be out in the community.

The level of trust Settree will be granted is one Luke Furlong knows can be broken.

Furlong's father Michael was murdered by Michael Striker in 2002.

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In 2020, Striker was reported missing after he failed to return to his mental health facility while on unsupervised day release.

Striker was found days later in a hotel three hours away from the facility and a year later he remains behind bars.

"He committed a crime that was so heinous … and now he's in jail for absconding, when he should never have been released because he killed someone," Furlong said.

There are 469 forensic patients in New South Wales alone and 97 per cent of them have killed someone.

The remaining three per cent have committed sexual offences.

Almost 40 per cent of the state's forensic patients are allowed day release and last year 38 absconded while out in the community.

Now victims' loved ones like Robinson and Furlong are fighting for the laws to change and they believe mentally ill killers should be found guilty and convicted because of their illness.

"It's just a slap in the face," Furlong said about the current system.

Victim advocate Howard Brown said he believes the majority of forensic patients "will always suffer from the condition that caused the crime in the first place".

He said forensic patients on day release need to be monitored in the same way as criminals on parole.

"We can't ensure that we know where forensic patients are at any given time," Brown said.

According to Brown, many of the systemic problems could be prevented.

"The system failed these forensic patients before they committed the offence … we should be saying to governments, 'Fix the problem before they kill, not after they kill,'" he said.

In a statement to A Current Affair NSW Health said: "Forensic patients receive specialist care and are generally transitioned from secure inpatient settings to less restrictive care after stages of trialled leave, with appropriate oversight from a clinical team, to ensure the safety of the patient, registered victims, and the community."