How would you feel about the Mama Hooch predators getting out of prison in just eight or nine years’ time? 

It’s on the cards after the judge who sentenced Roberto Jaz to 17 years and Danny Jaz to 16-and-a-half years yesterday said they had to serve at least half of that time before they could be considered for parole. 

From what I saw in the media reports, I thought Judge Paul Mabey was brilliant yesterday.

He ran the judge-alone trial that ran for three months earlier in the year and he was handing down the sentences yesterday to these two who sexually assaulted and/or drugged 23 women while running their father’s Mama Hooch bar in central Christchurch. 

They were convicted of 69 charges between them including rape, sexual violation, indecent assault, stupefying, disabling, making intimate recordings of women without their knowledge or consent, and supplying illicit drugs. 

From what I saw of the sentencing judge yesterday, he went from compassionate to cutting. 

As you’d expect, he was very compassionate towards the incredibly brave women who stood in court to deliver their victim impact statements. The incredibly brave women who decided to do what so many other victims of sex crimes just can’t do - which is go through the gruelling process of bringing sexual predators to justice. 

So Judge Mabey’s compassion for the Mama Hooch victims was very clear. 

He was very clear also in his words to the Jaz brothers. And this is where I thought he was cutting. And when I heard what he said, it made me think that it’s possible he was the first person to ever tell these guys that they’re not actually God’s gift to anyone and everything. 

The sense of entitlement displayed time and time again towards women who were doing nothing more than just going out on the town with friends or just earning money working in their bar tells me that, until yesterday, no one had ever really put them in their place. 

No one had ever told them that they don’t have an automatic right to do what they want, when they want, with and to whoever they want. 

Spoilt brats who took their self-entitlement absolutely next level. There’s no shortage of spoilt brats out there. But these two are next-level. Absolute monsters. 

The judge said to them yesterday: “The level of your offending is unknown in this country. You helped yourself to young women with callous disregard for their rights and their dignity.” 

Amazingly, positive character references were submitted to the court. But the judge wasn’t buying it, saying: “You are not men of good character. You’re sexual predators”. 

Sexual predators who hardly even blinked when they were in court yesterday. 

I think it’s pretty safe to say that the Jaz brothers have absolutely no remorse for what they did. No remorse for the lives they’ve changed forever. 

I was going to say no remorse for the lives they’ve ruined. But I really hope that the women who have survived what they’ve gone through and who have brought these two to justice get to a point where they can say their lives haven’t been ruined. 

Because they’re so young. They’ve got so much life ahead of them. Hopefully, what happened yesterday will go some way towards helping them recover. 

So the judge I thought was brilliant. The sentences, I thought, were about as strong as he could hand out. 

Nevertheless, the day will come when they can be considered for early release. And I reckon if there’s one thing the judge fell short on yesterday, it was failing to rule that the Jaz brothers should never be considered for parole. Never be considered for early release. 

Because, you’ll know as much as I do, that even the prospect of criminals being considered for early release can be traumatising for their victims. 

So why should these two - who offended on such an unprecedented scale, who treated women in such an appalling way, who would have to be two of the most predatory sexual offenders we’ve ever seen in this country, even have a remote possibility of getting out of prison before serving their full sentences? 

I think that, if the system has failed the victims of these crimes in any way, it happened yesterday when the judge did not dish out these sentences and tell those two creeps that early release would never be an option for them.