Jill Meagher’s killer Adrian Bayley to spend less time in prison
JILL Meagher’s killer Adrian Bayley has been cleared of raping a woman despite a jury finding him unanimously guilty of the shocking crime.
Law & Order
Don't miss out on the headlines from Law & Order. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- MORE: Coroner finds killer Bayley should have been in jail
- PREVIOUSLY: Bayley to appeal rape convictions
- SPECIAL REPORT: True evil of Adrian Bayley revealed
JILL Meagher’s killer Adrian Bayley has been cleared of raping a woman despite a jury finding him unanimously guilty of the shocking crime.
The Court of Appeal today overturned his conviction in a slap in the face to his victim.
The shock decision came after Bayley’s legal team appealed two rape convictions handed down last year.
The 44-year-old was sentenced to 18 years in jail for sadistic rapes on three vulnerable women whom he allegedly picked up off the street in the early 2000s.
The sentences had supposedly ensured Bayley, who was already serving a 35-year minimum “life” term over the murder of Ms Meagher in 2013, would not be eligible for parole until 2058.
He will now be eligible for parole three years earlier after the Court of Appeal ordered he be sentenced to 12 years and nine months on the other two rapes, to be served concurrently with his existing sentence.
Bayley was found guilty of the three rapes after facing three separate County Court trials.
Two of the rapes occurred in the months before Ms Meagher’s murder in September 2012 while he was on appeal bail and parole.
In each of the attacks, Bayley allegedly picked the women off the street, took them to secluded lane ways and brutally raped and taunted them.
But his legal team, led by Saul Holt QC, said the verdicts over two of the rapes were unreasonable.
Today the Court of Appeal acquitted Bayley of raping a woman who was just 18 when she claimed he trapped and brutalised her in 2000,
She claimed Bayley told her he was “one of those bad guys’’ before punching her in the face and brutally raping her.
The savage attack happened about 12 years before Bayley raped and murdered Ms Meagher.
The teenager had just turned 18 and had been working on the streets of St Kilda to support a heroin addiction.
She told the County Court the attack left her physically and mentally scarred for life.
She said she had never forgotten the man who brutalised her in the back of a red Mini in the Spring of 2000.
Over the years she told few of her ordeal, but by 2011 was confident enough to confide in doctors and sought counselling.
When she saw Bayley’s photo on Facebook “it all added up’’ and she called Crime Stoppers.
The brave victim reiterated her claims in the witness box as her alleged attacker looked on just metres away.
“You never forget someone who does that to you,’’ she said. “If someone is about to kill you and you have so much fear in you, you never forget the guy.’’
Bayley’s defence had argued the victim’s account was flawed because she had got the colour of Bayley’s mini’s interior wrong — it was black — and it did not have a glovebox as she described.
An expert in memory and identification told the jury that confidence was a poor indication of reliability when it came to facial recognition.
But the woman was adamant she would never forget Bayley and his evil eyes.
“I haven’t made any mistakes. I’m 120 per cent sure Adrian Bayley attacked me. I know he did,’’ she told the court.
“You never forget the face of someone who gave you so much terror and was going to take your life from you.’’
The Court of Appeal agreed that the woman’s identification evidence should not have been allowed and stated a jury could not have convicted Bayley without it.
But the court dismissed Bayley’s appeal against his conviction and sentence over the rape of a Dutch backpacker in 2012.
Bayley’s victory today followed a legal victory last year after he launched legal action against a Victorian Legal Aid independent reviewer who blocked his bid for a taxpayer-funded lawyer.
The state government in September formally intervened to prevent him accessing legal aid funding.
But the Supreme Court ruled in Bayley’s favour, finding legal assistance could not be denied because an applicant is notorious, unpopular and has prior convictions.
Ultimately, Bayley was declined assistance from legal aid, with his defence provided pro bono by Mr Holt, junior counsel and instructing solicitors.
Bayley’s application was assessed by a second independent reviewer.
In sentencing Bayley over the three rapes, Judge Pullen described him as a cowardly predator.
“Each (victim) in their own way was easy prey,” she said. “And you were an experienced hunter.”
wayne.flower@news.com.au