Jill Meagher’s killer loses bid to cut non-parole term

Killer Adrian Ernest Bayley will be 76 before he is eligible for parole for the murder of Irishwoman Jill Meagher.

Bayley has lost his bid to reduce his 35-year non-parole period for the rape and murder of the Drogheda woman.

Bayley’s lawyers conceded he deserved his life-term for killing the 29-year-old ABC employee in Melbourne last September, but tried to argue the minimum sentence was excessive.

Victorian Legal Aid barrister Saul Holt SC told the Victorian Court of Appeal that an appropriate non-parole period would have been between 28 and 32 years.

Mr Holt said it was not open for Victorian supreme court Justice Geoffrey Nettle to conclude that Bayley took pleasure in killing Ms Meagher — a factor that he said added a significant length of time to the minimum term.

Justice Nettle said Bayley had strangled Ms Meagher either because she had threatened to go to police or for his own perverted pleasure.

Crown Prosecutor Gavin Silbert SC said Mr Holt was splitting hairs.

“Effectively, the crown says that the sentence brought down by his honour is unimpeachable,” he said.

Mr Holt said the judge had erred by taking community protection into account when setting both the maximum and non-parole terms.

However, Mr Silbert said the court was obliged to make community protection a major consideration when setting non-parole periods for serious offences.

Chief Justice Marilyn Warren, Justice Paul Coghlan, and Justice Marcia Neave took less than 10 minutes to dismiss the appeal application.

In sentencing Bayley in June this year, Justice Nettle said he would have jailed Bayley for life with no chance of parole if he hadn’t pleaded guilty.