Gladys Staines happy with sentence to hunband’s, sons’ killers

(January 24, 2011) The widow of the Australian missionary who was burned to death along with his two young sons 12 years ago in eastern India’s Orissa state, has expressed satisfaction over last week’s Supreme Court judgement that upheld life term for the killer. Gladys Staines, the widow of Graham Staines, who has been staying in Australia after the killing of her missionary husband and their two sons in 1999, was happy that the Supreme Court of India upheld life term for the killer, Dara Singh and his accomplice Mahendra Hembram. "Every person should be given another chance to rebuild his/her life," said Prof Subhankar Ghosh, quoting Staines' widow. Ghosh, a close friend of the Staines family and in-charge of the Staines leprosy home and Evangelical Missionary Society, in Mayurbhanj, talked to Gladys after the Supreme Court delivered its verdict on Friday. Gladys, who last visited Orissa last year, had told media that she had already "forgiven" the killers. Her sons Philip and Timothy, then 10 years and six years old respectively, were killed along with their father as they slept in their car at night. Their only daughter Esther, who was brought up in Orissa's Mayurbhanj district and is now a final year medical student in Australia, had meanwhile married, said Ghosh, adding that both the mother and daughter had forgiven the killers. Meanwhile, Bhubaneswar Christian Community (BCC) and Orissa Minority Forum also expressing forgave the convicts, hoping the two will be transformed and follow the right path.