Australian jailed for 28 years over China student murder
2010-07-16 14:45
SYDNEY, Friday 16 July 2010 (AFP) - An Australian man was jailed for 28 years Friday over a "reign of terror" against four foreign students in which a Chinese woman plunged to her death from a balcony in a desperate bid to escape.
Homeless man Brendan David Dennison, 28, forced his way into a Sydney apartment and forced the 18-year-old woman from China and her Korean boyfriend, 19, to perform degrading sex acts at knifepoint in an hour-long ordeal.
Terrified, the pair fell from their third-floor balcony as they attempted to flee, plunging 25 metres (85 feet). The woman died and her boyfriend suffered serious spinal injuries, requiring major surgery. Dennison pleaded guilty to 19 charges including murder and rape over the 2008 attack, and Justice Elizabeth Fullerton sentenced him to a maximum 28 years in prison, of which he must serve at least 21 years.
She accepted that he was remorseful, had mental health issues and had not slept for days before the attack after bingeing on methamphetamine, a stimulant drug to which he was addicted. His lawyers said he had no recollection of his crimes and was "horrified" by what he had done.
However, the judge said the woman had died in a sudden and "grotesque" manner, having been raped repeatedly by Dennison, who then forced her boyfriend to sexually assault her and the other two women in the apartment. It had been a "reign of terror," Fullerton said.
