Heartbreak at Cairns courts in 2022
A BDSM session gone hideously wrong, a former high-flying executive jailed for rape and a man who waited five days to call triple-0 after stabbing his partner to death — these are the cases that shocked Cairns in 2022.
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A BDSM session gone hideously wrong, a former high-flying executive jailed for rape after being found guilty twice, a man who waited five days to call triple-0 after stabbing his partner to death, and justice for those who lost their lives were all featured in Cairns’ Courts in 2022.
Sex worker jailed
Cairns sex worker Madeleine Lewin, 34, pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of Anthony Michael Brady, 52.
Lewin represented hersel, sat at the bar table, but offered no defence and declined to speak on her own behalf.
Mr Brady, a Brisbane service station auditor, was found dead in a room at the Sunshine Tower Hotel in Sheridan St, on August 14, 2020.
He was found face down, naked and bound to a bed with rope and handcuffs, gagged, hooded, with rope tied around his neck, and with a used 20cm ribbed glass dildo between his legs.
He died from asphyxiation, forensic pathologist Dr Paul Botterill told the court.
Mr Brady arrived in Cairns on August 10 for work and was due to fly home on August 13, with family reporting him missing.
His heartbroken wife broke down when shown a photo of his body.
The court heard Lewin snapped her SIM card and left the unit in which Mr Brady’s body lay, with her face and head covered, and went on a burger run.
She caught a cab and went through a McDonald’s drive-through before heading to an acquaintance’s place, where she behaved erratically, kickboxing around the unit.
Lewin was found guilty and Justice Jim Henry sentenced her to six-and-a-half years in prison with no parole.
Justice Henry said Mr Brady must have exhibited he was in difficulty but Ms Lewin “self-indulgently continued on in disregard of his safety”.
“The present offence and your past offences suggest traits of self-centredness and a lack of empathy,” he said.
“You did not even cut just one rope with the box-cutter you had in the room, so that you might have at least turned his head slightly to try and permit the access of air to his nose or his mouth.”
‘I did not know she was dead’: Man sentenced for murder
In August, a man who killed his partner and stayed in the Trinity Beach unit with her rapidly decomposing body was sentenced for murder, four years after the deplorable act.
Anthony McPhee was 60 when he killed 71-year-old Kay Dix.
Cairns Supreme Court heard he stabbed her multiple times and told paramedics she had committed suicide when he rang triple-0, five days after the murder.
McPhee had Googled “paracetamol poisoning” two weeks before he killed Ms Dix, crown prosecutor Nathan Crane told the court.
The court heard Ms Dix probably died on Tuesday, March 27, 2018, but McPhee did not make the triple-0 call until Saturday, when there was a noticeable stench.
Mr Crane said couple was in dire financial straits at the time Ms Dix was killed – she had two accounts with $190,000 and $163,000 but these were almost totally depleted.
McPhee said her ailing health was depressing to him, but Mr Crane said Ms Dix had seen her doctor a week before her death and he described her as “in fair health”.
McPhee told paramedics he had shaken Ms Dix a few times and she did not respond.
“I did not know she was dead, it’s not my area of expertise,” McPhee said.
McPhee admitted he killed Ms Dix when he went to wake her and she grumbled at him.
“I put an end to her suffering, I thought I was helping her,” McPhee told a psychiatrist.
A victim impact statement from Ms Dix’s three daughters, who were in court, was read out. They said their mother was a well-regarded community member involved in many activities in her South Australian hometown, but became vulnerable when her third husband had an affair and left her, and McPhee pounced on her vulnerability.
Sentencing McPhee to life in prison with no parole date set, Justice James Henry said the murder and subsequent events were “plainly utterly illogical, barbaric and selfish thinking”.
The case languished for three years with arguments about McPhee’s fitness to stand trial, although ultimately he was found able to do so.
‘Rani’ remembered as driver sentenced
Justice was delivered for a vivacious 20-year-old who died in a horrific car accident on July 3, 2021, but her mother said no sentence would ever be sufficient for the loss of her daughter.
Talented footballer Ailsa ‘Rani’ Satini, 20, died of catastrophic head injuries.
Sentencing Morris Ling, 35, to six years and four years to be served cumulatively – effectively a 10-year sentence, with no parole date – Justice Jim Henry said he “took a drunken gamble with the lives of others”.
Ling was charged with manslaughter and aggravated dangerous operation of a vehicle causing grievous bodily harm while adversely affected by an intoxicating substance while excessively speeding.
The court heard that Rani was the designated driver of her Mazda 3 at a birthday celebration for Ling at Edge Hill Tavern.
She was in the driver’s seat when Ling – who had a blood alcohol concentration of. 218 – told her to get in the passenger’s seat, and took the keys off her, despite protests from brothers Anthony and Isiah and boyfriend Ethan, in the back seat.
He drove at up to 135km/h in a 50km/h zone on Enmore Road, accelerating through red lights and slamming into a Rav 4 driven by nurse Kimberley Coates, who suffered life-changing injuries.
The car then slammed so hard into a powerpole it tipped vertically, split the power pole, and killed Rani, who was in the front seat.
Rani’s devastated mother Tracy Satini recalled the last time she saw her daughter alive.
“I said ‘would you like me to drive you up, you can have a few drinks’ and she said ‘no mum, it’s fine I’m not drinking, I’ll drive the boys, I’m playing football at Yarrabah in the morning’.
“Just – when you get drink driving, it is not OK, so look after your loved ones, if you see somebody doing this, take the keys off them,” Mrs Satini said.
“Look after your loved ones.”
Twice-convicted rapist jailed
In September, a case that transfixed many readers was that of Alan Vico, 56, who pleaded not guilty to rape for a second time, was found guilty and sentenced to five years.
The former Ports North executive on a $230,000 salary received a five-and-a-half-year sentence after being found guilty in July 2020 of raping a 20-year-old Norwegian exchange student in September 2018.
But he won an appeal against the conviction and was released after serving 238 days.
During that time, he was assaulted when his cellmate attacked him, repeatedly smashing a TV set into his face, causing fractures that needed surgery.
Crown prosecutor Claudia Georgouras outlined how a holiday to Cairns for the electrical engineering student, who at that time lived in Brisbane, went hideously wrong.
Ms Georgouras argued the woman was so grossly intoxicated that she did not have the cognitive capacity to consent to sex with Vico.
The court heard the woman left the Woolshed with an estimated blood alcohol content (BAC) of .229 and jumped in a cab – giving the driver her Brisbane address.
She exited the cab on Sheridan St at 11.15pm and 15 minutes later, Vico spotted her, did a U-turn and she got in his car.
Less than an hour later, he took her to the Southside International Hotel in Earlville, and raped her.
The woman woke at 7am naked in the motel room, with a condom wrapper and $20 note by the bed, and no idea where she was or how she got there.
She went to reception distressed and the manager inspected the room, saw two condom wrappers and called police.
‘Rot in hell’: Drink-driver who killed ‘Millsy’ gets six year sentence
A shout of “I hope you rot in hell,” rang out in the public gallery of a Cairns court as anger erupted over the sentencing of a drink driver who killed a popular soccer coach at Freshwater two years ago.
Brendan John Gallagher, 36, pleaded guilty to the operation of a vehicle causing death while adversely affected by an intoxicating substance.
He had a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .275 on January 22, 2021, when he hit and killed 49-year-old father-of-four Dennis “Millsy” Mills, who was out jogging.
Gallagher will be eligible for parole after two years.
Mr Mills’ sister Deborah said the family would never get over the tragedy.
“Today’s outcome was disgusting,” she said.
“It’s like saying to these four kids that their Dad meant nothing. He gets to do two years and come out to his family.”
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