In two courts yesterday, two very different sentences were handed down, for two stomach-turning crimes which epitomise public disgust at random, life-destroying violence.
Did the courts reflect that public disgust in their sentences? Did they do their job in reflecting community standards? In one case, probably. In the other, most definitely not.
Both cases involved indiscriminate and unprompted violence, the kind of blink-of-an-eye brain-snaps which terrify every parent, where an innocent young man was jumped, king-hit and left for dead.
The strange difference between the two cases is that, in the first, the victim did not actually die but was left a vegetable with horrendous brain injuries, and his attacker received a relatively massive 14-year non-parole sentence.
In the second case, the victim actually died. But his attacker received a non-parole sentence of just five years, meaning he will be happily out of jail a few years before his 30th birthday.
On the face of it, it seems unusual that that a bloke who actually killed someone receives a sentence almost three times’ more lenient than someone who did not.
Although having said that, the injuries which were sustained by young Irishman David Keohane are so profound that you could argue death would almost have been a better outcome for this poor young man.
The bashing of David Keohane made national headlines in 2008 when the flooring contractor was jumped, robbed and bashed outside a Sydney pub by two men, 21-year-old Thomas Isaako, and New Zealander Kane Desmond Tupuolamaoui, who is still on the run.
Keohane was punched in the head 14 times.
Isaako was drunk and on crystal meth.
Keohane was in a coma for 218 days. He has permanent brain damage. He will take anti-convulsive medication, probably for the rest of his life, if you can call it a life.
Isaako had been acquitted of attempted murder but yesterday got 14 years’ minimum after pleading guilty to robbery in company and inflicting grievous bodily harm.
As far as sentences go, it was solid, even though most people would probably be happier if the court had thrown away the key.
“The injuries sustained by the victim can only be described as horrendous and have had (serious) consequences for him and his family,” Judge Ronald Soloman said in the NSW District Court yesterday.
“The savage attack in a matter of moments tragically changed the course of the victim’s life from that of a successful, independent young man to that of a dependent person confined to a wheelchair.”
Down in Melbourne, Justice Paul Coghlan was yesterday handing down his sentence in a case where a savage attack in a matter of moments tragically ended the victim’s life.
The victim in this case was 24-year-old Matthew McEvoy, who died after being king-hit twice in the head, and then kicked once in the head, by two attackers, 21-year-old Andriyas Tello, and Lauren Sako, after a minor argument in the smokers’ lounge at Melbourne’s QBH nightclub in 2008.
Sako, the kicker, has already been sentenced to six years with three years’ non-parole for his part in the attack.
Tello, the puncher, was up yesterday.
Justice Coghlan said yesterday he was unable to say conclusively which blow had caused McEvoy’s death, or whether it was caused by the blows in combination, but that it was immaterial because Tello had (eventually) pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
The maximum sentence for manslaughter is 20 years. Justice Coghlan stumped for just five.
It is worth examining Justice Coghlan’s sentencing remarks at some length to appreciate his reasoning in imposing this lesser sentence.
The judge said the key factors in his mind were the accused’s youth, genuine remorse, capacity for rehabilitation, while also mentioning his family background as a refugee and his capacity for self-harm if incarcerated for an onerous length of time.
To some people it will sound compassionate and reasonable. To others it will sound like a sob-story which insults the memory of Matthew McEvoy.
Justice Coghlan said he could not find “the least indication” that neither Tello nor his companions “had ever behaved in this way in the past”.
“The expression “thug” or “thugs” has been used about you and your group, and although it is an apt expression to use with regard to your behaviour on this occasion, it is not an accurate description of your previous character and disposition,” the Judge told Tello.
He then turned to Tello’s difficult childhood as the seventh of eight children, born into an Assyrian family in Iraq, which they fled after the Gulf War in 1992, and after one of Tello’s uncles had been tortured to death by Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The family lived in Jordan, Turkey and Greece for the next five years, with young Andriyas selling tissues on the streets of Athens to help his family survive. They were finally accepted for asylum by Australia in 1998, after which Tello was bullied at primary school, which Justice Coghlan said was “perhaps the unfortunate cost of being different.”
Despite these hardships, Tello finished Year 12, completed a pre-apprenticeship course in building and construction, and had begun a carpentry apprenticeship which he was unable to complete after he was charged over McEvoy’s death.
Evidence was heard from experienced forensic psychologist Patrick Newton who said Tello had “expressed uncharacteristic remorse for the deceased and his family, as well as regret”.
“In particular, he noted how sincerely you regretted the way you had intervened on the night,” the Judge told Tello yesterday.
Mr Newton also stated in evidence that Tello had suffered a form of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his life in Iraq. He described him as a young man who “ordinarily rejects violence and does not condone the use of physical aggression as a valid means of achieving his desires or resolving conflict”.
But Mr Newton went on:
“Notwithstanding these positive values, my assessment did identify some issues in Mr Tello’s conflict-management skills. These have their roots in his traumatic and displaced childhood. Even though the trauma has now passed, Mr Tello continues to have some difficulty engaging with his emotions…Mr Tello is likely to be unaware of his anger until it has reached significant proportions. He is likely to experience his anger as coming upon him suddenly and this makes it more difficult to exercise appropriate control over it.”
This was the part of the judgment which most disturbed me. A bloke who is prone to such uncharacteristic blow-ups that he will land a life-ending punch on an innocent kid will be walking free in five years, after the court took what I regard as an overly sympathetic view of his background.
You would hope, and the court clearly does, that five years in the clink will force Tello to reflect on that part of his character, and that it will not happen again.
It’s a gamble. A huge gamble.
And as far as Matthew’s Dad is concerned, who sat crying in court yesterday and shaking his head as the sentence was handed down, it is also an appalling bloody insult to his son’s memory, which does not even come close to reflecting the magnitude of the crime.
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