Supreme Court refuses to grant interim supervision order for double killer

Government lawyers were left high and dry after the NSW Supreme Court refused to grant an interim supervision order for a man twice convicted of manslaughter – the second time over the death of a 13-month old baby.

A man jailed twice for the manslaughter of another man and later a baby will not be supervised by police, the Supreme Court has ruled.

A convicted double killer most recently jailed for more than a decade over the horrific death of a 13-month-old baby will not be subject to special monitoring for “high risk” offenders when his latest prison sentence expires in less than three weeks, a court has ruled.

The NSW Supreme Court this week refused an application by the State Government to have the 47-year-old Aboriginal man, who can only be known as ‘LC’, placed on a 28-day interim supervision order ahead of a more substantive hearing for an extended supervision order (ESO).

Under the proposed ISO, LC would have been subject to close monitoring by authorities by way of stringent conditions and restrictions on his liberty, including the possible use of an electronic ankle device designed to track his movements day and night.

However, Justice Julia Lonergan found LC’s case did not reach the required threshold to make such an order, saying she was not satisfied “to a high degree of probability” that LC posed an “unacceptable risk of committing another serious violence offence” if the order wasn’t put in place.

The court heard LC’s propensity for violence in the past saw him fatally shoot a stranger in a brothel in December 1996 after barging into the premises armed with a shotgun and demanding to see “Nina”.

The Supreme Court considered whether LC should be subject to an interim supervision order.

When the victim asked his name, LC said “you want to know my name” and shot the man in the throat.

LC subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter and was jailed for a maximum of 12 years, with a non-parole period of seven years and six months.

The court heard he was in the midst of serving that parole when he choked his ex-partner’s 13-month-old son, threw him on a bed and stomped in his chest during a drunken rage in December 2007.

The baby was rushed to hospital but died the following day.

LC pleaded guilty to his second charged of manslaughter and was sentenced to 14 years jail, with a non-parole period of 10 years and six months.

The court heard LC completed several courses while behind bars aimed at targeting his drug, alcohol and anger management issues, prompting authorities to grant him parole in June 2020.

But just three months after his release, LC was returned to custody after threatening to kill a police officer who arrived at his home to serve a weapons and firearms prohibition order on him.

He spent a year behind bars on remand until he was sentenced to a three-year supervised community correction order in September 2021.

LC had his parole reinstated a month later and has remained offence free since, the court heard.

In opposing the ISO, LC’s legal team argued he would already be subject to stringent, ongoing supervision from authorities under the terms of the community correction order, in place until 2024, and his automatic inclusion on the Child Protection Register, which carries its own set of onerous reporting and monitoring conditions offenders must abide by.

Justice Lonergan agreed, finding both lots of supervision weighed heavily in LC’s favour, and together with his matured approach to life, were sufficient to reduce his risk of reoffending.

Originally published as Supreme Court refuses to grant interim supervision order for double killer