When John Flanagan stood outside of court in February 2016 following the sentencing of the man that killed his wife, he defiantly queried why that man could be out of prison in four years.
Almost precisely seven years to the day since Mr Flanagan lost his wife, he received news the man who killed her would be sent back to prison after being released on parole - something he said was an indication of a void of justice for her life.
Mr Flanagan's wife, Maureen, was tragically killed when a car driven by David Jonathan Holmyard careened into her at 170 km/h as she turned into her Western Junction driveway.
Holmyard had only minutes earlier been signalled to pull over by police, but he did not.
Following the crash and subsequent investigations, it was revealed Holmyard had a cocktail of alcohol and drugs in his system. That cocktail included methyamphetamine.
Holmyard eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the Launceston Supreme Court and was sentenced to six years behind bars with a non-parole period of four years.
Four years later, Holmyard was out of prison.
But before his parole period was over, Holmyard was again back in prison, this time sentenced to two-years' prison for drug trafficking after he was busted with 48.1 grams of methamphetamine.
While Mr Flanagan did not have a crystal ball, his prediction was eerily accurate.
"Four years he'll be out. I don't get my wife back, the kids don't get their mother back," he said in 2016.
How can you deter someone from speeding and drugs and everything else if there's not going to be a hard enough sentence?
- John Flanagan in 2016
"I don't want everybody suffering for the rest of their life, so let's stop them before they do it."
Speaking following Holmyard's latest sentence, Mr Flanagan's despair was as palpable as it was five years ago as he spoke up against the initial sentence.
Fighting back tears Mr Flanagan said the latest sentencing had ripped open the wounds his family was just beginning to repair.
My kids are devastated he's out doing what he's doing, and they haven't got their mother.
- John Flanagan
"She would've had two great-grand-children, and she's missed two weddings. And he was out there doing this while out on parole. Where are his lessons? He hasn't learnt anything.
"This bloke has killed someone, and now he's out here breaking the law straight after getting out of prison.
"If he had been rehabilitated we would never have seen him again. The fact he's been caught doing what he was doing, there's no justice in it."
Attorney-General Elise Archer and the Justice Department were both contacted for comment and asked whether parole legislation should to be reviewed.
Mr Flanagan said he and his family had moved house following his wife's death, and he had not learnt of Holmyard's release until he was told his wife's killer was back in prison for something else related to drugs.
He said while Holmyard had not been under the influence of drugs himself when he was caught, there was no way to know the damage he had caused to the people he was selling the drugs to, or their families.
When Holmyard was sentenced for trafficking his defence counsel told the court his client had not sold to children and only to regular drug users.
Reiterating what he said five years ago, Mr Flanagan said there was so cruel and devastating irony that his original prediction that six years was not a long enough sentence came true.
It just confirms what I thought. I didn't think he was going to get out and be a model citizen or even try to be, I always just thought he'd continued offending.
- John Flanagan
"Not once did he apologise. He never had any remorse of anything like that.
"We had to turn up to six court cases without him even fronting. He just got up in court at the last minute and admitted to being wrong."
During a witness impact statement read in the Supreme Court in 2015, Mr Flanagan detailed how his wife had been the glued that held his family together, and revealed that her grandchildren had been asking him whether their grandmother knew they missed her.
But what he did not reveal at the time she was killed Mrs Flanagan was returning from dropping their autistic foster child at a friend's house for the evening.
He said the child, now aged 22, had blamed himself for his mother's death. He said the 22-year-old had not left the house since Mrs Flanagan's death.
Mr Flanagan said he and the 22-year-old were trying to move on and Holmyard's latest indiscretion had brought that movement to a halt.
He said he had no idea how, of if, he could inform the 22-year-old about what he said was a lack of justice for the life of his mother.
"We would have loved to see [Holmyard's] name in the paper for something good he'd done," Mr Flanagan said.
"The fact is he was never rehabilitated. I don't think he has any morals at all.
He's just a selfish person and he has no regard for everything he's put our family through.
- John Flanagan
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