Bourke St killer James Gargasoulas hears from victim’s families in Supreme Court
The wife of Bourke St victim Matthew Si has bravely faced his killer in court, calling him a “coward” who had deprived a little girl of her father, on day two of the killer’s pre-sentence hearing.
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The wife of Bourke St victim Matthew Si has bravely faced his killer in court, calling him a “coward” who had deprived a little girl of her father.
Melinda Tan stood just metres from James Gargasoulas in the Supreme Court and told him: “I wear the label of a widow, and you a murderer.”
“Your words of sorry mean nothing to me,” Ms Tan said.
“You are a coward who sat in the safety of your car while you killed and injured innocent lives.
MORE ON THE PRE-SENTENCE HEARING
DAY ONE: James ‘Dimitrious’ Gargasoulas should never be released: prosecution
“May you suffer from the consequences of your actions and live in eternal fear.”
Ms Tan recalled leaving lunch with her husband in the city when she heard the sirens, and tried calling him with no answer, on January 20, 2017.
It would be hours later she would be told in hospital that he had died as doctors frantically tried to save him on the operating table.
His facial and body injuries, she said, were so severe he was not identifiable.
She could not allow their 18-month-old daughter, Aria, to see him and say goodbye.
When she told her daughter her “papa” had been hit by a car and was not coming home, she said the toddler, who had been taught road safety, quipped: “Papa was not on the footpath? He did not look left or right?”
She couldn’t comprehend why a car was driving on the footpath, Ms Tan said.
“She still asks for her father,” Ms Tan said.
Turning again to Gargasoulas, and with a friend by her side holding a framed picture of her husband, she said: “Matthew and I were meant to grow old together. You took away our dreams of having a sibling for Aria. We will never get to go on family holidays or celebrate milestones.”
Tears swelled in the eyes of many in the packed courtroom as Ms Tan and other family of victims each took turns to read out how Gargasoulas’s heinous crimes had shattered their lives.
Nawwar Hassan Bryant, the mother of the youngest victim, three-month-old Zachary, spoke of losing “our beautiful, perfect little baby” when he was struck and thrown from his pram.
She recalled only hours earlier feeling his “weight and warmth” in her arms as they had visited the Melbourne Museum with his older sister, Zara.
That joy quickly turned to her worst nightmare, she said, as her and her husband, Matthew Bryant, waited anxiously in hospital on any news of both of their injured children’s lives.
Zara, then aged two, suffered facial and body burns but would survive. But little Zachary was brain dead.
Ms Hassan Bryant took aim at how police handled Gargasoulas in the lead up to his horrendous crimes.
“I have lost the feeling of safety I once felt in my city,” she said. “I also lost faith in the police system. Why did it take six people to die, over 50 injured, and thousands affected before any action was taken?”
There is a “big flaw in the system”, she said, which is “meant to keep us safe”.
Gargasoulas, 29, was found guilty in November of six counts of murder and 27 counts of recklessly cause serious injury following a week-long trial.
The trial heard how police had been following him for hours, calling and texting him to in a bid to stop him, before his deadly turn on to Bourke St.
The pre-sentence hearing continues.
BOURKE ST KILLER TO HEAR PAIN HE HAS CAUSED
TRIAL OF BOURKE ST RAMPAGE OVER