DPP appeals against ‘inadequate’ nine-year sentence handed to cold case killer Paul Beveridge Maroroa
A shooting which left a man dying in agony in a beachside car park was a manslaughter as close to murder as it is possible to get, the DPP says, arguing the killer’s nine-year sentence is far too low.
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A string of violent events which ended with one man shooting another with a sawn-off shotgun, before taking the time to reload and shoot him again, is “as close to murder as you can get”, prosecutors have said.
The Court of Criminal Appeal heard on Tuesday that the nine-year prison sentence handed down to Paul Beveridge Maroroa for the cold case killing of Peter Sabeckis in 2000 was manifestly inadequate.
Maroroa, who fled to New Zealand in the days after the shooting and remained there until he was arrested in 2018, was given a six-year non-parole period.
Sandi McDonald SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said that Justice Sam Doyle, who presided over the trial, had dismissed Maroroa’s version of events when it came time to pass sentence.
Maroroa had told the court he had gone to Gull Rock car park at Maslin Beach, south of Adelaide, early on the morning of January 13, 2000, to deliver a firearm to Mr Sabeckis.
He said the victim had taken the gun from him and threatened to kidnap and rape him.
Maroroa said Mr Sabeckis was shot and killed in the ensuing struggle.
Ms McDonald said that with Maroroa’s story dismissed, all that was left to discern the seriousness of the manslaughter was the evidence at the scene.
In detail, Ms McDonald took Justices Trish Kelly, David Peek and Kevin Nicholson through the sequence of events she said the evidence showed.
“(Maroroa) went armed with a gun and at least five shells, he reloaded twice, he chased Mr Sabeckis through the carpark and hit him with the gun, then he left him to die and fled the jurisdiction,” she said.
Ms McDonald said that this example of manslaughter was at the most serious end of the spectrum and the prison sentence needed to correspond with that level of seriousness.
A jury acquitted Maroroa of murder at trial but found him guilty of manslaughter.
Heath Barklay QC, for Maroroa, said Justice Doyle accepted that a struggle led to the shooting, which was evidenced by a substantial amount of Mr Sabeckis’s blood on Maroroa’s clothing, which was later discarded.
Maroroa was eventually identified by a DNA match to blood found in the car he crashed when trying to escape the scene.
He had been leading a mostly crime-free life in New Zealand when he was arrested.
Ms McDonald said he should not be given credit for rehabilitating in the years since he fled South Australia.