Kylie Lang: Life sentences must be for life
Justice is not served when heinous crimes are downplayed by a parole date that indicates anything BUT life behind bars, writes Kylie Lang.
Kylie Lang
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Life sentence is a misnomer. Better to call it what it is – a discretionary period in jail before being set free into the community.
Justice is not served when heinous crimes are downplayed by a parole date that indicates anything BUT life behind bars.
We’ve seen it all too often, and now again this week, with the inexplicable eligibility for parole of convicted murderer Brian Earl Johnston after 20 years in the clink – 1057 days of which has been served in remand.
In April 2041 – a smidge over 17 years from now – Johnston could be back living among us.
Meanwhile, the real life sentence continues for the family of his primary victim, Kelly Wilkinson.
The decision to release a prisoner rests with the parole board, the court absolved of further responsibility.
But like many Queenslanders, I am at a loss trying to understand why Johnston’s file wasn’t stamped “never to be released” in Brisbane’s Supreme Court on Wednesday.
State law does allow a criminal to be held until their death – a judge can override the legally set parole eligibility of 20 years’ served for murder (or 25 years for murder of a police officer, or 30 for murder of more than one person by someone with a previous murder conviction). Judges cannot decrease the time in jail before parole is considered, but they certainly can increase it, as the Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council confirms.
Our state has been rocked by some absolutely horrific crimes of domestic and family violence.
Hannah Clarke and Doreen Langham are just two of too many names that shouldn’t be known to any of us who are not family members or friends. Kelly Wilkinson is another.
The Gold Coast mother of three was viciously stabbed then doused in petrol and burned to death while her young children were present in their Arundel home on April 20, 2021.
One child later told police: “Daddy came in and put Mummy in the fire.”
How life for those little innocents will now play out just boggles the mind, doesn’t it?
Ms Wilkinson, 27, was dearly loved by all her family, with one of her sisters, Danielle Carroll, telling Johnston in Brisbane’s Supreme Court on Wednesday: “You have caused me and everyone around me a lifetime of immeasurable pain and suffering”.
The court also heard Johnston had been charged with raping his estranged wife in the weeks before he murdered her, with Justice Peter Applegarth finding he had been motivated to “silence her” in those proceedings.
Johnston, a former United States Marine, strenuously denies the four counts of rape and will defend the charges at a future trial.
Justice Applegarth remarked that the murder was a crime of “extreme domestic violence” and committed in spite of two court orders designed to protect Ms Wilkinson.
So if the crime was extreme, why not revoke the privilege of parole?
As of May 2016, DVF was deemed by law to be an “aggravating factor” on sentencing for criminal offences under the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992, opening the door to harsher penalties.
Recommendations delivered in 2021 by the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce, chaired by Margaret McMurdo, have also sought to strengthen the response to DVF.
And, as the Sentencing Advisory Council states: “Maximum penalties are important because they set out the most severe consequence for an offence … they also reflect how serious the community views different types of offences to be.”
In the case of Kelly Wilkinson, I’m confident the community is on the same page: Johnston should never be released.
Courier-Mail readers concur.
One said: “If this bloke is allowed to see the light of day again, everyone should know the laws of the land are broken.”
Another: “A life sentence should mean he’s there until he dies. He does not deserve a second chance.”
And this: “What does it take to get life without parole, surely this is up there?”
I’m not a lawyer – I switched out of a law degree at UQ and into journalism many moons ago – but like any other Queenslander, I want to see that justice is served.
Ms Wilkinson’s family have described Johnston as “pure evil” and “a monster”.
Surely, such an individual who has destroyed not one life, but many lives, should be kept off our streets forever.
Mitigating circumstances? We’re not interested.
Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail
kylie.lang@news.com.au
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