Akon Guode jailed for 20 years for killing her three children in lake
AN EVIL mum is set to face deportation after serving at least 20 years in jail for deliberately driving her car into a lake, killing three of her children.
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AN EVIL mum is set to face deportation after serving at least 20 years jail for deliberately driving her car into a lake, killing three of her children.
A fourth child survived the “horrendous crime” but watched in horror as her siblings drowned.
Justice Lex Lasry yesterday conceded that Akon Guode’s sentence could be seen as “inadequate”.
But he said others might well call it “excessive” due to the troubled mum’s mental state at the time.
Guode, a mother of seven, was sentenced to a total of 26½ years in jail with a non-parole period of 20 years for the drownings of one-year-old son Bol, four-year-old daughter Hanger and her twin brother Madit, and the attempted murder of five-year-old daughter Aluel.
The latter was pulled alive from the water after the family car sank in Lake Gladman, Wyndham Vale, in April 2015.
Justice Lasry said he did not believe Guode killed her children out of vengeance, but rather “extreme desperation”.
He accepted she suffered post-traumatic stress from the horrors she had endured in South Sudan and further depression after the birth of Bol.
“The sentence I am about to impose is, in some respects, inadequate to reflect the gravity of what you have done yet at the same time excessive given your mental state as well as your background of hardship and desperation,” he said.
Guode received 22 years for each of the murders of the twins, a year for the infanticide of Bol and six years for the attempted murder of Aluel. In coming to his total sentence, Justice Lasry added six months of the sentence for the death of Bol to the base term of 22 years; three years of the sentence for the death of Madit; and one year of the term for the attempted murder of Aluel.
Justice Lasry said he would have given Guode life with a 30-year minimum had she not pleaded guilty to the crimes.
She admitted the murders in January after initially denying them. Guode is likely to spend a little over 18 years in jail, having already served 660 days on remand.
Victims of crime advocate Noel McNamara described the sentence as “very light” and criticised prosecutors for failing to ask for a life sentence.
“She killed three children and attempted to kill a fourth, she should have got life in prison,” he said.
In the Supreme Court, Justice Lasry condemned Guode, who bawled throughout the sentencing.
“Your actions amounted to an horrendous crime on innocent children and a gross breach of trust and a betrayal by you of your obligation to protect your children,” Justice Lasry said.
He told Guode that he was unsure she felt any real remorse as she continued to deny she murdered the children despite her guilty pleas.
“You do not accept that you intended to kill them … by pleading guilty to these offences it is implicit that you admit your intention to kill. To actually say that in terms is, I suspect, too painful for you,” he said.
Witnesses said they saw Guode look on as her children drowned. One saw what appeared to be a baby floating on its back and trying to keep its head afloat before going under.
Guode has never revealed why she killed her children.
All four involved in the horror were fathered by her lover, Joseph Manyang. Police claimed she was struggling at the time with her children and gossip within the Sudanese community about her affair.