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Adrian Bayley was on parole when he murdered Jill Meagher Adrian Bayley was on parole when he murdered Jill Meagher
(35 minutes later)
Adrian Bayley was on parole for other rapes when he raped and murdered Melbourne woman Jill Meagher. Adrian Bayley, who has admitted raping and murdering ABC employee Jill Meagher, has previously been found guilty of more than 20 rape offences and was on parole for attacking five prostitutes at the time of Meagher’s death, it has been revealed in court on Tuesday.
Bayley's plea hearing in the Victorian supreme court on Tuesday heard he had twice been jailed for rape and was still on parole when he raped and killed Meagher in a laneway in Melbourne. Justice Geoff Nettle revoked a suppression order at Bayley’s pre-sentence hearing at Victoria’s Supreme Court, allowing details of his previous crimes, which have been reported by foreign media, to be released to the Australian public.
Bayley, of Coburg, pleaded guilty to raping and murdering the 29-year-old on 22 September last year. Bayley, 41, who has pleaded guilty to raping and murdering Meagher in Brunswick on 22 September last year, was responsible for a string of sexual and violent offences over the past two decades.
Crown prosecutor Gavin Silbert SC said Bayley was jailed for five years in 1991 with a non-parole period of three years over six charges including rape and attempted rape relating to three different victims. The first of more than 20 rapes by Bayley was a violent assault on a 16-year-old friend of his sister, when he was 18-years-old.
He was released on parole after three years before being jailed again in 2002, Silbert said. In 2002, Bayley was convicted of raping five prostitutes in Elwood. Initially sentenced to 11 years in prison, he was released on parole in 2011, which would have lasted until March this year.
Silbert said Bayley, 41, was jailed that time for 11 years, with a non-parole period of eight years, on 16 counts of rape against five victims. However, in February last year, he was accused of assaulting a man, with Geelong Magistrates Court sentencing him to three months in prison.
Bayley was also on bail when he raped and murdered Meagher, Silbert said. Bayley appealed against the prison term, freeing him from custody and ultimately allowing him to drag Meagher into a laneway off Brunswick’s Hope Street in order to rape and strangle her.
He had been jailed for three months for recklessly causing serious injury but had lodged an appeal and was on bail awaiting his appeal, Silbert said. The pre-sentence hearing was told that four months after his first rape, Bayley attempted to rape a 16-year-old hitchhiker he picked up in his car. He was sentenced to five years in prison for these first two assaults in 1991, but was released after two years.
The court heard Bayley would face trial in the Victorian county court next year for other matters. In 2002, he pleaded guilty to 16 counts of rape committed between September 2000 and March 2001. Bayley would drive prostitutes to a laneway behind a string of shops in Elwood, where he would park his car close to the wall so they couldn’t open the passenger door to escape.
Bayley's lawyer Saul Holt SC said Bayley should not be given a life sentence and called for a non-parole period to be imposed. At the time of the 2002 trial, Judge Tony Duckett said that Bayley had subjected his victims to “deliberate humiliation.”
He said the Crown submission that Bayley should be jailed for life with no parole was not appropriate because the case was not "on that level of severity". "You used an array of threats and violence to force your victims to satisfy your gross sexual appetite," Judge Duckett said.
"It is an awkward submission to make," Holt said. "Your conduct went far beyond mere sexual gratification. You forced your victims to accept a series of sexual acts that caused them horrifying distress."
"It sounds hollow and falls flat. In the Victorian Supreme Court on Tuesday, defence barrister Saul Holt said that Bayley accepted that a life sentence was “appropriate”, but asked for a specific non-parole period so that he had the chance of being released in the future.
"My submission is this is not offending that, even taken in combination with Mr Bayley's prior convictions ... should mean that the key gets thrown away forever." Professor James Ogloff, a psychologist, told the court that Bayley claims to have been sexually abused by his father and a female relative from the age of nine.
He said his client had expressed genuine remorse and self-loathing and read a letter of apology from Bayley to the court. Bayley also told Ogloff that he had feelings of remorse for what he had done and had attempted suicide after being arrested over Meagher’s rape and murder.
In the letter, Bayley said he was truly sorry for what he had done and would not ask for forgiveness. Crown prosecutor, Gavin Silbert, SC said that Bayley should never be released.
"I cannot begin to imagine what the family and friends of Jill are going through," he said. The prosecution played CCTV footage in court that showed Meagher’s final moments, as she walked home along Sydney Road at 1.30am.
"That night, I destroyed a precious life." Meagher, 29, spoke briefly to her brother in Ireland on the phone before being attacked by Bayley.
Bayley admitted he lied in a sexual rehabilitation program while serving a prison term in order to get parole, psychologist Prof James Ogloff told the court. Bayley left her body in the laneway until 4.22am, when he returned in his Holden Astra. He drove Meagher’s body to Gisborne South, about 45km from the scene of the crime, where he buried her in a shallow grave.
"I basically went through the motions and told them what they wanted to hear," Bayley said, according to an extract of an interview between Bayley and Ogloff which was read to the court. Tom Meagher, Jill’s husband, told the Supreme Court in a victim impact statement that he was half a person since he lost his wife. He said he was haunted constantly by visions of what had happened to Jill just metres from their home.
The court heard Bayley admitted to Ogloff he typically blamed his victims for his crimes and lashed out physically whenever confronted or challenged.
Ogloff diagnosed Bayley with borderline personality disorder during a psychological exam in May.
He described Bayley as a violent sexual predator, who fantasised about assuming a position of power and control over his victims.
Ogloff said he believed Bayley had remorse for his offending, despite trying to hide Meagher's body and initially denying responsibility in his police interview.
Meagher's husband, Tom, told the court in a victim impact statement that he was half a person since he lost his wife to a grotesque and soulless human being.
He said he was constantly haunted by visions of what happened to his wife in the laneway just metres from their Brunswick home.
Meagher said his future had been taken away and replaced with a life of fear, insomnia and anger.
"What was stolen from me on the 22 September 2012 was love, my best friend and my entire world," he said."What was stolen from me on the 22 September 2012 was love, my best friend and my entire world," he said.
"I think of the waste of a brilliant mind and a beautiful soul at the hands of a grotesque and soulless human being."I think of the waste of a brilliant mind and a beautiful soul at the hands of a grotesque and soulless human being.
"I am half a person because of this crime.""I am half a person because of this crime."
Meagher said what happened to his wife, as well as talk in the aftermath that he had been involved in her death, had destroyed his faith in mankind. George McKeon, Meagher’s father, told the court: "It is just not okay to rape and murder my child.”
"[The thought that] she had crossed paths with evil haunts me every day," Meagher said. "It was a brutal end to her life and something that will live with me for the rest of my life.”
"What has been given to me ... is firsthand knowledge of how deeply depraved and disgusting a human being can be." "I will never see my daughter bearing and rearing her children. I have no other daughters.”
Meagher's father, George McKeon, broke down as he read his statement to the court, saying he and his wife would never get to see their daughter have children. A friend of Meagher, Effie Lyons, spoke about declining an invitation to meet up with her friend on the night she died.
"That is a life we just will never have," McKeon said.
A friend of Meagher, Effie Lyons, said she would be forever haunted by the “what ifs”, having declined an invitation to meet up with her friend on the night she died.
"I had a missed call from her shortly before she died. I was asleep, about 100 metres from where it happened," she said in her victim impact statement."I had a missed call from her shortly before she died. I was asleep, about 100 metres from where it happened," she said in her victim impact statement.
"I am acutely aware that under slightly different circumstances, Jill could be here reading a statement about me.""I am acutely aware that under slightly different circumstances, Jill could be here reading a statement about me."
Bayley will be sentenced on Wednesday 19 June at 9.30am.
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