A survivor of Melbourne's Russell Street bombing has broken her 32-year silence in a bid to keep police killer Craig Minogue behind bars.
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Former officer Deborah Richardson, who was injured in the 1986 car bombing attack outside the Russell St police station, spoke out on Thursday as lawmakers scrambled to close a "loophole" allowing Minogue to seek parole.
Minogue's case again hit headlines after the High Court ruled on Wednesday retrospective laws aimed to keep him in prison did not apply.
Ms Richardson said politicians and the parole board need to ensure he stayed behind bars for the bombing which killed her colleague, Constable Angela Taylor.
"My message is that this guy can never get out," she told 3AW.
"It cannot set the precedent. I rejoiced to hear when the law was passed that finally, in our justice system, life was going to be life.
"This guy was going to die behind bars where he deserved."
The mother-of-three, who was 21 at the time of the blast, said she "vividly" remembers the chaotic events of March 27 that year.
"I came in and sat down on my desk, which was right beside the window, and at 1.01pm there was extremely loud bangs," Ms Richardson said.
"I was blown off from my chair, from one side of the room to the other against the wall as every window and door caved in around me."
A piece of a chipboard randomly placed beside her office window, in combination with arriving uncharacteristically early for her 1pm shift, saved her life, she said.
Although Ms Richardson, now in her 50s, survived the bombing, the impacts have been ongoing.
She quit the force eight years later and still suffers back pain and post-traumatic stress.
"I still jump at thunderstorms. If I hear a car backfire, I jump," she said.
"The reality of hearing about bombings around the world takes you back to that day."
Ms Richardson said she didn't trust politicians to remove the "crazy, bloody loophole" and wants to plead her case with the parole board directly.
"There are many hundreds of victims like me that didn't speak about that day. We need to be given the chance," she said.
"If this law doesn't go through or is overturned or changed, then I want to have that opportunity to sit in front of that parole board and let them understand the impact of what that day was."
Australian Associated Press
