Rapist, murderer Bayley jailed for life
AAP Updated June 19, 2013, 8:20 am
AAP © Adrian Bayley will be sentenced over the rape and murder of Melbourne woman Jill Meagher
Adrian Ernest Bayley has been jailed for life but granted a 35-year non-parole period for the rape and murder of Melbourne woman Jill Meagher.
Victorian Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Nettle jailed Bayley for life for the murder plus 15 years for the rape.
"The nature and gravity of your offending and its antecedence ensure that nothing but life imprisonment will suffice," Justice Nettle told Bayley.
"It was a savage violent rape of the worst kind.
"Your killing of the deceased ranks among the worst kind conceivable.
"I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt you pose a risk to the sexual safety of the community."
Justice Nettle said Bayley would not have received a minimum term if he had not pleaded guilty.
"I consider your plea of guilty and what I consider to be some small degree of genuine remorse keeps you out of that category," Justice Nettle said of the prosecution's request for life with no parole.
"When you offend sexually you also invariably offend violently," he told Bayley.
"I have no choice but to sentence you to prison for a very long time."
The 41-year-old Coburg man pleaded guilty to raping and murdering the 29-year-old in Brunswick on September 22 last year.
"You were determined to have your way with her and so you overpowered her and raped her where she stood," the judge said.
"You are a recidivist violent sexual offender who has had little compunction about sexually offending when the mood takes you.
"You dragged her off the street at night while she was quietly going about her business a stone's throw from her home.
"The rape was savage and degrading."
Bereaved family
Jill Meagher in all probability had the greatest and best of her life before her, before she was stolen from her husband and parents by Bayley, Justice Nettle said.
Her husband Tom Meagher had been robbed of the love and companionship of his life partner.
Two soft cries of "yes" could be heard from the public gallery when the judge read the sentence.
Bayley sat with his head down throughout the sentencing and stood motionless when Justice Nettle delivered the jail term.
Bayley was on parole after serving eight years for raping five women - his second prison stint for rape - when he dragged Ms Meagher into a dark Brunswick laneway, then raped and murdered her on September 22 last year.
Violent predator
It was revealed at his plea hearing last week that Bayley admitted faking a sexual rehabilitation program to get parole the first time he was jailed for rape in the early 1990s.
Psychologist Professor James Ogloff told the hearing Bayley admitted he was "trying to think of a way to get out of things", even after confessing to strangling Ms Meagher.
He said Bayley was a violent sexual predator who typically blamed his victims for his crimes.
But defence lawyer Saul Holt SC argued Bayley had not intended to murder Ms Meagher, and strangled her because she fought back.
He said his client had expressed genuine remorse and true self-loathing, attempting suicide in custody.
But Crown Prosecutor Gavin Silbert SC urged Justice Geoffrey Nettle to make no finding of remorse.
He said Bayley murdered Ms Meagher to silence her, knowing he would face a lengthy jail term if again convicted of rape.
Ms Meagher's grieving family were in court to hear Bayley's sentence.
The Meagher family has spoken of their heartache after losing Jill at the hands of a 'grotesque and soulless individual'.
In a victim impact statement read at Bayley's plea hearing in the Victorian Supreme Court, Tom Meagher said he was constantly haunted by visions of what happened to his wife in a laneway just metres from their Brunswick home.
He said his future had been taken away and replaced with a life of fear, insomnia and anger.
“What was stolen from me on the 22nd of September 2012 was love, my best friend and my entire world,” Mr Meagher said in his statement.
He said his faith in mankind had been destroyed by the evil crime committed against his wife.
"I think of the waste of a brilliant mind and a beautiful soul at the hands of a grotesque and soulless human being," he said.
"I am half a person because of this crime."
Ms 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 of her own.
“That is a life we just will never have,” Mr McKeon said.
Ms Meagher's brother, Michael McKeon, said there were no adequate words to describe the impact of the loss of his sister.
“I am in dreadful pain, I must carry on with living a full life, yet I will never forget my sister,” he said in a statement read to the court.
Bayley has been raping, abducting and threatening to kill women throughout his adult life.
In June 1991, Bayley was jailed for five years on six charges including rape and attempted rape against three victims and was out on parole by February 1993.
In 2002, he was jailed for 11 years for the rape of another five women.
He was again granted parole and was back on the streets by March 2010.
In August 2011, while he was still on parole, Bayley assaulted a man in Geelong.
Six months later, the matter came before a magistrate, who sentenced him to another jail term, this time for three months. His parole, though, was not revoked.
Public grief
The public outpouring of grief for Jill Meagher was unprecedented and likened to the scenes of sorrow that followed the death of Princess Diana.
About 30,000 people marched along Sydney Road, calling for women to be safe at night.
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