As the prison door opened, Jan Wallis fought back a wave of last-minute nerves. This was it, the moment she had been waiting years for, and as the man shuffled in and locked eyes with her, she could no longer hold back. When the mum-of-three wrapped her arms around Raymond Hansen (43) and held him close, it was the last thing anyone expected her to do. After all, this was the man who had killed three people, including her adored daughter Rochelle (22) in 2005, a loss that could have left Jan broken and bitter.
But instead, when Jan finally met Hansen at Wanganui Prison recently, she was overcome with a sense of deep and lasting forgiveness. “He knew what he had done and he looked broken. I saw it in his eyes,” she says. “I could see he really wanted to reach out to me. our eyes locked, he came over to me and we hugged.
“He said, ‘I’m so, so sorry.’ His family members were there too. They were broken also and cried. They are victims too. There was so much disbelief that I was hugging this man who took three lives. I never thought I would do that.”
The horrific incident where Hansen killed Rochelle and her friends Aaron Hurley (22) and Paul Cowper (21), and critically injured two others, was described in court as one of the worst drink-driving crashes in New Zealand history. Police officers who chased Hansen for an hour before the fatal accident told the court they were forced to stop after the fleeing man’s car reached 180km/h. He lost control of the car on a bridge in Normanby, just outside Hawera, and smashed into the van that the three young people were travelling in. It immediately burst into flames and the victims didn’t stand a chance of escaping the fireball.
Hansen, who had two previous drink-driving convictions, escaped unhurt from the collision and was sentenced to nine years in prison for three manslaughters. Jan had re-married only recently when the police came to her home with the news that her daughter was dead.
“Things in my life were bright and happy. When I was told about Rochelle, I was very calm and collected. I made a decision from the start that I wanted to deal with the grief in a positive way.
“There are many dimensions involved in losing someone special in your life and they can really affect your relationships with those around you. I didn’t want the pain and the grief to suck me into a black hole.” But there was one piece missing for Jan as she went through the healing process over the years – she had never faced her daughter’s killer.
Jan is emotional as she describes visiting the jail last year to see Hansen, a meeting organised by Victim Support as part of the restorative justice programme. Hugging him was something she would never have imagined doing but it felt like the right thing to do in the moment, she says, and although she forgives Hansenfor taking Rochelle’s life, she doesn’t accept his actions.
“He was very open and shared that he wasn’t in a good space. He told me why he did what he did and I told him I’m still grieving, that I’m hurt and I’m disappointed in him. I didn’t brush it off and say, ‘I forgive you and everything is sweet.'”
Hansen is up for parole in August and Jan is the only relative of a victim who has forgiven him for his actions that terrible day.The mothers and family members of the two other victims still harbour deep resentment towards him.
“oy heart goes out to the other families because I know what they’re going through,” Jan says. She believes becoming a pastor in her local church helped her find the strength to forgive. Rochelle has a mosaic headstone which Jan says is appropriate because, like the last five years, she’s made something beautiful out of something broken.
“I will always grieve for the loss of a beautiful daughter,” says Jan, “but I can’t let that engulf the rest of my life. I’m so pleased that I was brave enough to reach beyond myself. I feel at peace and full of hope in the future, and I’m looking forward to what’s ahead of me.”
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