The Herald Sun had just been bornwhen the little-known name Antonios Mokbel appeared in it for the first time.

It was an article back on page 37, on November 22, 1990, when Mokbel and two other men were charged with trying to bribe a County Court judge.

Have your say below: What other crimes have stayed with you over the past 25 years?

Over the next two decades the man who became known as Fat Tony has found himself in hundreds of Herald Sun stories, graduating into one of the biggest crime bosses Victoria has ever produced.

There have been gruesome murders, serial killings, terrorist plots, horrendous rapes and world record drug busts since the first copy of the Herald Sun rolled off the presses on October 8, 1990.

The Herald Sun has been at the forefront of reporting on all of them.

These are the cases from the past 25 years that we’ll never forget.

SOUVENIR LIFTOUT: Don’t miss Thursday’s Herald Sun for our 24-page special celebrating the unforgettable moments of the past 25 years.

NOVEMBER 22, 1990

First time the name Antonios Mokbel appeared in print. He was facing court after being charged with attempting to bribe a judge. Fat Tony graduated into one of Victoria’s most notorious crime figures, fleeing overseas while on bail over his drug importing empire. He was recaptured hiding in Greece and jailed in 2012 for 30 years.

MORE: TONY’S GREAT ESCAPE

APRIL 13, 1991

Victorian parents were already in fear of child kidnapper Mr Cruel, whose victims included 10-year-old Sharon Wills, who he held captive for 18 hours in 1988, and Nicola Lynas, 13, who he kept prisoner for 50 hours in July 1990.

The fear of Mr Cruel grew considerably when he grabbed Karmein Chan, 13, from her Templestowe home on April 13, 1991.

That community fear reached epidemic proportions when Karmein’s body was found almost exactly a year later. She had been shot three times in the back of the head.

Police suspect he was responsible for at least a dozen sickening attacks on children over a 10-year period.

Mr Cruel has so far not been caught.

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES: VICTORIA’S COLD CASES

JUNE 29, 1991

Sheree Beasley, 6, was riding her pink bicycle when she was snatched near her Rosebud home.

Her body was callously shoved in a Red Hill drain by paedophile and former church elder Robert Arthur Selby Lowe.

That tiny pink bicycle, with Sheree’s matching pink bicycle helmet hanging from its handlebars, was wheeled into court during Lowe’s murder trial.

It remained there until the jury found him guilty. He later became one of very few Victorian prisoners to be jailed for life with no minimum term.

JULY 29, 1992

University students Kerryn Henstridge, Anne Smerdon and Peter Dempsey were shot dead in their Burwood home.

Their killer responded to an ad for a flatmate.

He bound them with plastic cable ties behind their backs, made them lie face down in separate rooms and then shot each of them in the back of the head.

Ashley Mervyn Coulston was later jailed for life with no minimum term over the triple murder. He had been arrested after tying up a couple at gunpoint in gardens near the National Gallery, who escaped and raised the alarm.

JUNE and JULY 1993

Frankston serial killer Paul Charles Denyer struck fear into the community.

It seemed like no young woman was safe as the then 21-year-old Denyer committed attack after attack during a scary seven-week period in 1993.

He murdered the first of his three stabbing victims, student Elizabeth Anne-Marie Stevens, 18, on June 12, 1993, near her Langwarrin home.

Then came young mother Debra Anne Fream, 22, who had given birth to her son just 12 days before Denyer grabbed her as she popped out to buy some milk.

Her body was found at Carrum Downs on July 12, 1993.

Denyer was charged two days after murdering his third victim, Natalie Jayne Russell, 17, whose body was found near a Frankston golf course on July 30, 1993.

Justice Frank Vincent did the right thing and jailed Denyer for life without parole, but that sensible decision was overturned on appeal and Denyer was given a 30-year minimum term.

Justice Vincent painted a chilling picture of what life was like for women as a result of Denyer’s frenzied killing spree.

“The apprehension you have caused to thousands of women in the community will be felt for a very long time,” he told Denyer on the day he sentenced him.

“For many, you are the fear that quickens their steps as they walk home or causes a parent to look anxiously at the clock when a child is late.”

JUNE 14, 1997

Moe toddler Jaidyn Leskie’s disappearance dominated Herald Sun pages for years afterwards as the case went through many twists and turns.

The mystery of what happened to the 14-month-old — characterised by theories, rumour, innuendo, urban myths and bizarre happenings — captivated Victorians.

There were more than 600 articles in the Herald Sun on the case between 1997 and 2014 — 25 of them on page one.

Jaidyn’s brave mother, Bilynda Williams, continued during those years to fight long and hard for justice for her son.

But Victorians may never know the truth about what happened to the tragic toddler.

Bilynda’s then boyfriend, Greg Domaszewicz, who was babysitting Jaidyn the night he disappeared, broke a decade-long silence in 2014 to speak to the Herald Sun.

He admitted his “stupidity” in leaving Jaidyn home alone caused the toddler’s death, but he defiantly proclaimed he never harmed Jaidyn.

Domaszewicz was charged with murder months before the Moe toddler’s body was fished out of a dam near Moe on January 1, 1998.

His 1998 Supreme Court trial exposed the underbelly of life for some in Moe.

There were tales of rampant drug use and revenge attacks over sexual relationships gone wrong.

It was a life where cutting off a pig’s head and trying to hurl it through a window at the home of a sister’s ex-boyfriend — as happened at Domaszewicz’s house the night Jaidyn disappeared — hardly raised an eyebrow.

But in December 1998, at the end of that two-month trial, Domaszewicz was acquitted and walked free from court.

Bilynda vowed not to rest until she got justice for Jaidyn, and her very vocal campaign in the Herald Sun eventually persuaded then-state coroner Graeme Johnstone to hold an inquest.

In 2006, Mr Johnstone found that Domaszewicz disposed of Jaidyn’s body.

OCTOBER 5 and 6, 1997

Schoolgirls Lauren Barry and Nichole Collins were abducted before being murdered.

The sadistic nature of triple murderer Leslie Alfred Camilleri sickened Australians when it was revealed he and partner in crime Lindsay Hoani Beckett subjected Lauren, 14, and Nichole, 16, to a 12-hour ordeal before their brutal deaths.

The girls were abducted not far from their homes in Bega, New South Wales, on October 5 and were kept hostage at knifepoint as they were driven from one remote location to another and repeatedly raped.

They were taken to Fiddlers Green Creek just over the border, walked into the bush and bound with rope before Camilleri, 28, ordered the subservient Beckett, 24, to murder them.

Beckett claimed he murdered Lauren and Nichole because Camilleri threatened to kill him if he didn’t.

He pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in jail, with a minimum 35-year term because he agreed to give evidence against Camilleri.

Beckett spent five days in the witness box at Camilleri’s trial. A jury found him guilty.

In sentencing Camilleri to two life sentences with no chance of parole, Justice Frank Vincent said he had forfeited his right to ever walk free in society again.

What was not known at the time Camilleri was jailed for the 1997 murders of Lauren and Nichole was that he had already murdered Prue Bird, 13, in 1992.

It wasn’t until December 2012 that Camilleri pleaded guilty to the murder of Prue, who disappeared from her Glenroy home on February 2, 1992. Her body hasn’t been found.

Camilleri has refused grieving mother Jenny Bird’s plea to tell her or police what he did with Prue’s body.

The police theory is that Prue was murdered to get back at some of her relatives who made statements about who was responsible for bombing the Russell St police complex in 1986.

But Camilleri insisted he accidentally suffocated her after snatching her off a Glenroy street, and later dumped her body at a Frankston tip.

NOVEMBER 1, 1997

Mersina Halvagis, 25, was stabbed more than 30 times as she tended her grandmother’s grave at Fawkner Cemetery.

It was to be another 13 years before serial sex killer Peter Norris Dupas was found guilty of her murder.

Dupas has been convicted of the mutilation murders of another two women - psychotherapist

Nicole Patterson, 28, who was stabbed to death in her Northcote home in 1999 and sex worker Margaret Maher, 40, who was killed four weeks before Ms Halvagis was attacked in 1997.

He is serving three life sentences without parole for those three murders.

Dupas is also the prime suspect in the unsolved murders of:

KATHLEEN DOWNES, a 95-year-old great-grandmother who was slain in her Brunswick nursing bed home on New Year’s Eve in 1997.

RENITA BRUNTON, 31, who was repeatedly stabbed in the neck and chest in her Sunbury shop on November 11, 1993.

HELEN McMAHON, 47 who was bashed to death while sunbathing on a beach at Rye on February 13, 1985.

NOVEMBER 6, 1997

In a tragic case of mistaken identity Jane Thurgood-Dove, 34, was shot dead in front of her three children.

Ms Thurgood-Dove had the misfortune to live in the same Niddrie street as the woman police believe was the intended victim of suspected bungling bikie hitman Steven John Mordy.

That woman was Carmel Kyprianou, the wife of convicted criminal Peter Kyprianou, who had survived a murder plot three years earlier.

Ms Kyprianou drove a similar car to Ms Thurgood-Dove, the two women had similar hair, both had children and both lived three houses from different corners of Muriel St.

She told reporter Andrew Rule: “If it wasn’t meant for her (Ms Thurgood-Dove) it makes you wonder. Maybe it was for us. Who knows?”

Ms Thurgood-Dove drove the family car into the driveway of her home about 3.50pm following her usual school pick-up run. Her three children, aged 10, five and three, were in the back seat.

After getting out of the car, Ms Thurgood-Dove was allegedly confronted by Mordy, who was wearing a hooded jacket and a mask.

He allegedly chased the terrified Ms Thurgood-Dove around the vehicle. She tripped and fell and was shot, at close range, in the back of the head as her shocked children watched in horror.

“Our most beautiful mummy who loved and cared for us so much,” the children wrote in the Herald Sun.

“We are so sad that you are not here to watch us grow. We will always watch your shining star brightly in the sky.”

Mordy died before he could be charged, as did one of his accomplices, James Ian Reynolds.

Police believe they know who allegedly hired Mordy, but he has never been charged. Neither has the getaway driver.

There is a $1 million reward available to anyone who can provide evidence that leads to a conviction in the case.

AUGUST 16, 1998

The murders of Victoria Police officers Gary Silk and Rodney Miller sent shock waves through the force and through the state.

They were shot dead at Moorabbin during a stake-out to try to catch those responsible for a series of armed robberies.

Painstaking detective work by the elite Lorimer taskforce resulted in Bandali Michael Debs and Jason Joseph Roberts being convicted on December 31, 2002, of murdering Sgt Silk, 35, and Sen-Constable Miller, 34.

The jury was told during their trial that police secretly taped the killers coldly describing the shootings as “a little thing”, and taunting police by shouting “bang bang, suck on that” as they drove past other officers.

DNA taken from Debs after his 2000 arrest over the double police shooting linked him to two more murders.

That DNA helped convict Debs of the 1995 murder of prostitute Donna Hicks, and the 1997 murder of teenager Kristy Harty at Upper Beaconsfield in Victoria.

Debs is serving four life sentences, with no minimum term. Roberts was jailed for life with a 35-year minimum term over the Silk-Miller murders.

OCTOBER 13, 1999

Gangland hothead Jason Moran shot tubby drug dealer Carl Williams in the stomach in an attack credited with starting Melbourne’s bloody gangland war.

Williams survived and vowed to get the Morans and their supporters — a vow he pursued with vigour.

There were four gangland killings in 1999, another four in 2000, only one in 2001 and two in 2002, including Victor Peirce, who had been acquitted of the murders of police officers Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre. There were eight in 2003, the bloodiest year of the war, five in 2004, and one in 2006.

APRIL 4, 2002

Known as the Society Murders, the deaths of multi-millionaire Armadale couple Margaret Wales-King, 68, and her husband Paul King, 70, received massive coverage in the Herald Sun.

It was initially a mysterious missing persons case, with their Mercedes being found in Middle Park.

As the days passed with no trace of the wealthy socialites, theories canvassed ranged from double murder to kidnapping, a staged disappearance or a suicide pact.

Confirmation they were dead came nearly four weeks after the couple disappeared as their bodies were discovered in a bush grave 95km northeast of Melbourne in the Yarra Ranges National Park.

Police were suspicious of Margaret Wales-King’s son, Matthew, from the start, but he wasn’t charged with the murders of his mother and stepfather until May 11 - 12 days after the bodies were found.

Matthew’s wife, Maritza, eventually dobbed him in, pleaded guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice and was given a two-year sentence, fully suspended.

Matthew Wales later admitted killing his mother and stepfather after feeding them dinner laced with sedatives.

He told detectives he couldn’t remember how many times he hit his mother and stepfather as they walked across his front yard towards their car after the meal.

“My head was just going bananas and I just kept on hitting. I just kept on hitting,” he said.

Matthew’s barrister, Michael Tovey, QC, told the court his client had harboured fantasies about killing his mother since childhood. He saw her as an oppressive woman who controlled his life financially and socially.

He was jailed for 30 years and ordered to serve a minimum of 24.

JUNE 21, 2003

Jason Moran and Pasquale Barbaro shot dead in a van outside a children’s football clinic at Cross Keys Reserve. Several children were inside the car at the time, including Moran’s own children. Carl Williams later pleaded guilty to ordering the hit on Moran and was jailed for at least 35 years, and the gunman and getaway driver also admitted their roles.

MARCH 23, 2004

It’s difficult to imagine a man murdering his five-months pregnant wife and toddler with a spear gun — but that’s what Mornington Monster John Sharpe did.

After murdering pregnant wife Anna, he used the same spear gun to kill 20-month-old daughter Gracie four days later.

He then carried on an elaborate three-month charade of pretending Anna, 41, and Gracie were alive and well.

Sharpe even made a televised public appeal to track down his supposedly missing wife and daughter, saying he feared he would be denied access to Gracie.

He claimed the child his wife was carrying was not his and that his wife had left him for another man.

Sharpe sent his mother-in-law flowers for her birthday and made it look as though they had come from his wife.

Sharpe also wrote letters to Anna’s friends, withdrew money from her account and used her mobile phone to create the impression she was still alive.

The bodies of his wife and daughter were dumped at a Mornington tip. Sharpe had chopped up his wife’s body with a chainsaw.

He was arrested on June 22, 2004, and later jailed for life and ordered to serve at least 33 years before being eligible for parole.

FEBRUARY 13, 2005

What started off as a missing person mystery captivated Victorians with its bizarre and tragic twists and turns was what became known as the “body in the boot” case.

That wasn’t a strictly accurate title as the victim, suburban mother-of-two Maria Korp, actually didn’t die until almost six months after she was discovered in the boot of her car near the Shrine of Remembrance four days after the vehicle was parked there on February 9, 2005.

Maria Korp was put in a medically induced coma at The Alfred hospital on the day she was lifted out of the boot.

She never regained consciousness and died on August 5, 2005, aged 50, after being taken off life support.

Maria’s wayward husband, Joe Korp, and his mistress, Tania Herman, were suspects from the day she was found, near death, in the boot.

Joe Korp had persuaded Herman to attack Maria in the garage of the Korps’ Mickleham home. He hid her inside the garage at 5.50am and went to work, leaving Herman to carry out his instructions when Maria came down to get in her car.

Herman tried to strangle Maria, bundled her into the boot of Maria’s Mazda 626 and drove the car to Dallas Brooks Drive, parked it and left — knowing Maria was still alive after having heard her gasping for breath.

Joe Korp, who was awaiting trial for the attempted murder of Ms Korp, took his own life the day of his wife’s funeral while awaiting trial.

Herman served nine years of a 12-year sentence before being released in 2014.

SEPTEMBER 4, 2005

Robert Farquharson murdered his three sons by driving his car into a dam at Winchelsea and leaving them to drown.

He let himself out of the car he had just driven into the dam on September 4, 2005 - Father’s Day - and made his way to land to flag down a passing motorist, leaving his three sons Jai, 10, Tyler, 7, and Bailey 2, trapped inside the vehicle.

Farquharson’s failure to try to save his drowning children was a crucial factor in two successive juries finding him guilty of murdering his three sons.

They didn’t buy his lame excuse that he accidentally drove into the dam after suffering a coughing fit and blacking out.

Farquharson was jailed for life with no minimum term after his first trial in 2007.

Still maintaining his innocence, he appealed. The Court of Appeal overturned the conviction and ordered a second trial.

Although he was again found guilty at that second trial in 2010, he got the lesser sentence of a life term with a 33-year minimum.

His estranged wife, Cindy Gambino, initially refused to believe Farquharson had deliberately driven into the dam to kill their children.

Ms Gambino’s attitude to Farquharson changed as the evidence mounted against him — with the clincher being the testimony at the second trial of motorist Dawn Waite, who told the court she saw Farquharson driving moments before he veered off the road and that he was completely conscious and not coughing.

Ms Gambino, who thought the first jury had wrongly convicted an innocent man, told the second jury in 2010 she wanted Farquharson convicted of triple murder.

“I hate him for what he has done for my life,” she said.

SEPTEMBER 6, 2005

Victorians were horrified by the acts of wicked mum Donna Fitchett, who murdered her two sons, Thomas, 11, and Matthew, 9, in their Balwyn North home.

“I overdosed the boys and when they were asleep I suffocated them and then strangled them in case they woke up,” Fitchett, who was 45 at the time, wrote in a note to then-husband David.

In jailing her for 27 years and ordering that she serve a minimum of 18 for the murder of her sons, Justice Elizabeth Curtain said Fitchett had committed “the greatest act of betrayal” by robbing the boys of their precious lives in a “truly appalling” manner that was “offensive to civilised society”.

Prosecutors had asked that Fitchett be jailed for life.

David Fitchett told the Herald Sun in 2010 about his disappointment that his ex-wife would one day walk free.

“How can you not get life for taking two innocent lives, under any circumstances?” he said.

Fitchett could be released as early as 2023.

NOVEMBER 8, 2005

Melbourne-based radical Muslim cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika was arrested, along with several of his terrorist followers.

In the months that followed, the Herald Sun revealed just how close Australia had come to experiencing a devastating terrorist attack.

Possible bombing targets of Benbrika’s Victorian and NSW terror cells included the MCG during the 2005 Grand Final, Sydney’s Lucas Heights nuclear reactor and Crown casino during Grand Prix weekend.

Police secretly created and exploded a “Mother of Satan” bomb to prove Benbrika and his extremist followers had the materials to make the feared terrorist device.

They were able to show Benbrika terror cell members ordered and bought hundreds of litres of chemicals and specialist laboratory equipment to make a bomb capable of killing and injuring thousands of people.

Benbrika’s goal was to commit a terrorist attack of such enormity it would persuade the Australian Government to pull its troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We’ll damage buildings. Blast things, thinking big not small,” Benbrika told his terror cell members.

“What we want to do is to do maximum damage and damage their property. Damage their lives.”

He is eligible to be released in 2017, by which time he will have served his 12-year minimum term.

JUNE 15, 2007

Chef John Xydias was arrested after videotapes were found of him raping unconscious women, dressing them in lingerie and posing with them. Most victims did not know they had been assaulted until shown the horrific footage. Xydias was jailed for at least 20 years for offences against 11 victims.

JUNE 18, 2007

Melbourne was brought to a shocked standstill by Christopher Wayne Hudson, a drug-crazed Hells Angel who went on a shooting spree in William St.

Hudson had become enraged earlier that morning when exotic dancer Autumn Daly-Holt gave a lap dance to another man inside King St strip club Bar Code.

He was caught on CCTV cameras kicking Ms Daly-Holt in the face and dragging her by the hair.

Hudson, 30, called his girlfriend, Kaera Douglas, who was also a friend of Ms Daly-Holt. Instead of allowing her to help her injured friend, Hudson dragged Ms Douglas into an underground car park and threatened her with his 40-calibre handgun.

She escaped momentarily as Hudson waved his gun at a man who had heard Ms Douglas screaming.

Ms Douglas tried to get into a taxi but Hudson caught up with her and as she was struggling to escape again solicitor Brendan Keilar, 43, and Dutch backpacker Paul de Waard, 26, bravely came to her aid.

Hudson shot Mr Keilar, Mr de Waard and Ms Douglas, then fired at them again as they lay on the ground.

That morning of mayhem in the CBD left Mr Keilar dead, Mr de Waard and Ms Douglas fighting for their lives and bash victim Ms Daly-Holt with serious head injuries.

Hudson fled the scene, but gave himself up to police two days later.

He pleaded guilty to murdering Mr Keilar, attempting to murder Mr de Waard and Ms Douglas and causing serious injury to Ms Daly-Holt.

Hudson also admitted firing an unregistered pistol from the window of his Mercedes-Benz six days before the CBD shootings, when he had Collingwood footballer Alan Didak in the car, whom he had befriended at the Spearmint Rhino strip club.

Hudson was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 35 years before being eligible for parole.

JUNE 28, 2007

The world’s biggest ecstasy bust was made in Melbourne, with Australian Federal Police seizing 4.4 tonnes of pills hidden in tomato tins shipped from Italy by the Calabrian mafia.

It brought down some of Australia’s major crime figures, including Calabrian mafia bosses Pasquale Barbaro and Frank Madafferi.

In what was one of the largest AFP operation ever, gang members were watched by surveillance officers for 10,000 hours, 185,215 telephone conversations between gang members were secretly recorded and AFP agents and prosecutors put in 287,000 hours of work to crush the syndicate.

Conversations secretly taped by police revealed the Calabrian mafia gang — led by Barbaro — remained hopeful of obtaining the 15 million pills for months after the container arrived in Melbourne, while suspecting, but not being sure, that the ecstasy had been seized.

Much of the background to the world’s biggest ecstasy bust remained secret for years because of a myriad suppression orders as the various cases dragged through the courts.

The lifting of those suppression orders in February this year enabled the Herald Sun to reveal exclusive details about the case.

Thirty-two of the 33 people charged were convicted and jailed for a combined period of 275 years, with Barbaro being jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum term of 30 years.

The only one still to be dealt with is Graham Gene Potter, who fled while on bail and is yet to be found.

AUGUST 23, 2007

Melbourne’s notorious Hot Chocolate Rapist was mentioned in the Herald Sun many times as he drugged and attacked women between 1990 and 2005.

But the paper was only able to put a name to him when Harry Barkas was arrested on August 23, 2007.

Police discovered Barkas and his mate, John Xydias, who formed a friendship while they were both pupils at prestigious Wesley College, had established a sick partnership in which they trawled nightclubs for prey and perfected identical routines of spiking women’s drinks before raping them.

Publicity over the charges led to more women coming forward and Barkas copped even more charges.

His favoured modus operandi was to use cups of hot chocolate laced with drugs to render his victims unconscious.

Many of his victims accepted lifts from Barkas as they left nightclubs. He would then stop at a convenience store, buy them a hot chocolate and slip the drugs in the drink before giving it to them.

Sadly, the fact his victims remembered little, if anything, about the attacks as they were knocked out by the drugged drinks, meant that although initially charged with 77 offences relating to 30 women, Barkas was only convicted in 2010 over three rapes. He was jailed for just nine years following his guilty plea.

JANUARY 29, 2009

Evil father Arthur Phillip Freeman threw daughter Darcey, 4, to her death from the West Gate Bridge.

It was an unspeakably cruel act, with Freeman a weak man who decided to get back at his former partner by killing their children.

The day before Darcey’s death, a court reduced Freeman’s access to his three children.

On the morning he hurled Darcey off the bridge, which was to be her first day at school, he told his ex-wife and Darcey’s mum, Peta Barnes, by phone: “Say goodbye to your children. You will never see them again.”

Evidence suggested he intended throwing Darcey’s two brothers, aged six and two, off the bridge as well, but panicked and fled when other motorists stopped after seeing him toss Darcey to her death.

Freeman pleaded not guilty to the murder of Darcey on the grounds of mental impairment, an argument which was rejected by the jury.

He was jailed for life in 2011 and ordered to serve a 32-year non-parole term.

JUNE 2, 2011

Siriyakorn “Bung” Siriboon, 13, disappeared while walking to school from her Boronia home. Her parents, Fred and Vannida Pattison, have been living that nightmare since Bung, 13, left her family home in Elsie St, Boronia, about 8.20am.

A neighbour saw her walking east towards Albert Ave a few minutes later, heading in the direction of her school - Boronia Heights College.

There have been no confirmed sightings of Bung since then and the case remains one of Victoria’s most baffling.

As Detective Supt Brett Guerin said at the time: “This is the type of crime that really strikes fear into the heart of people with kids. Here’s a kid walking to school and she just vanishes.”

The case remains unsolved, but Bung is believed to have been murdered.

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

ABC staffer Jill Meagher was raped and murdered by Adrian Ernest Bayley, who should have been behind bars at the time after breaching his parole.

A Herald Sun investigation following the attack on Ms Meagher in Brunswick exposed serious failings in Victoria’s justice system.

The Herald Sun was at the forefront of the campaign for changes following the death of Ms Meagher.

It published almost 500 articles on the case and the justice system failings it threw up, failings which included Bayley:

BEING released on bail twice in 1990 after sex attacks, only to reoffend both times;

SERVING only 22 months in jail for his first three attacks on teenage girls;

BEING allowed to remain free on parole and bail after pleading guilty to king-hitting a stranger in 2011, an offence he committed while on parole that should have put him back behind bars for breaching that parole — which would have seen him in jail in September 2012 and Ms Meagher would still be alive.

Bayley pleaded guilty to raping and murdering Ms Meagher.

He was jailed for life in 2013 and ordered to serve a minimum term of 35 years.

That non-parole period was extended by 10 years in 2015 as Bayley was jailed for 18 more years for the sadistic rapes of three women he picked up off the street.

Bayley will be 86 when he becomes eligible for parole in 2058.

FEBRUARY 12, 2014

Luke Batty, 11, was attacked with a cricket bat and stabbed to death by his father, Greg Anderson.

Following years of violence and threats directed at Luke’s mother, Rosie Batty, Anderson murdered their son Luke at cricket practice at Tyabb oval and was then shot dead by police.

If the system had worked as it should, Anderson wouldn’t have been able to take out his anger on Luke.

There were warrants out for Anderson’s arrest at the time of the attack, but they had not been served.

Police spoke to Anderson about an unrelated incident shortly before he killed Luke, but did not take him into custody.

Batty’s press conference after her son’s violent death touched hearts around the nation and became a defining moment in Australia’s battle against the scourge of domestic violence.

“I want to tell everybody family violence happens to everybody - no matter how nice your house is, how intelligent you are. It can happen to anyone and everyone,” the brave and grieving mother said.

In the months after that, Ms Batty became a powerful and enduring force against domestic violence.

Her vital role in raising awareness of the problem saw her named Australian of the Year.

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

A game changer that revealed Australia’s vulnerability to lone wolf terrorist attacks occurred on September 23, 2014.

Inspired by the Islamic State death cult, Afghanistan-born teenage terrorist Numan Haider attacked two police officers without warning before being shot in the head.

The Coroners Court heard Haider, 18, launched his attack the moment the Victoria Police and AFP officers approached him in a carpark near the Endeavour Hills police station and asked him to take his hand out of his pocket.

Haider pulled out a knife, slashing the Victoria Police officer across the arm before turning on the AFP officer.

Counsel assisting the coroner, Jessica Wilby, said Haider continued his attack on the AFP agent as he fell to the ground, climbing on top of him and stabbing him in the face and upper body.

Evidence was given that the Victoria Police officer drew his gun and called on Haider to drop the knife before shooting him dead.

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keith.moor@news.com.au