Schoolgirl killer Sean Christian Price sentenced over Masa Vukotic murder
UPDATE: SEAN Price will spend at least 38 years behind bars for murdering schoolgirl Masa Vukotic, as a judge slammed the “complete folly” of Victoria’s justice system for allowing Price to roam free.
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UPDATE: SEAN Christian Price has been jailed for life with a non-parole period of 38 years for the murder of schoolgirl Masa Vukotic in a Doncaster park last year.
Supreme Court Justice Lex Lasry has savaged the “complete folly” of Victoria’s justice system in allowing the depraved 32-year-old killer to roam free to murder.
“You have committed horrendous crimes,” Justice Lasry told Price.
“Your act of killing her was at the extremity of brutality.”
In sentencing, Justice Lasry said a 10-year supervision order placed on Price in May 2012 had not had any impact, with the killer committing several serious crimes since.
“You were given the freedom to commit these offences in circumstances where that should never have occurred.
“How you were permitted to be released into the community ... is astonishing,” Justice Lasry said.
He said the “complete folly” of the impotent supervision order was “demonstrated with tragic effect”.
“The supervision order has effectively been ignored,” Justice Lasry said.
Yesterday marked one year since the 17-year-old was viciously stabbed to death while on her evening walk.
The court heard Price had determined to attack Masa because she looked like a “rich yuppie” and a “princess”.
“She started talking to a bird like f***ing Snow White.
“I f***ing started ripping and stabbing,” Price told police following his arrest.
Attorney-General Martin Pakula welcomed the “very substantial sentence” for Price’s “horrific crime ... which shocked Victoria”.
“Hopefully today’s sentence provides some small measure of closure for Sean Price’s victims and their families,” Mr Pakula said.
MORE: They knew Masa’s killer was a madman
UNDER FIRE: Parole board ignored warnings
He said the Andrews Government had already recognised the failures of the justice system outlined in Justice Lex Lasry’s sentencing remarks.
“There’s been an absolute recognition by this Government, and I believe by both sides of politics, that there were extreme failures in the system,” Mr Pakula said.
He said major reforms had been implemented but flagged “further changes” in the coming weeks.
The Andrews Government received the Harper Review - a six-month investigation of sex offenders on supervision orders - last November.
Mr Pakula said it would be publicly released once relevant legal proceedings were finished.
“I’ve got no doubt that review will lead to further significant changes,” Mr Pakula said.
Opposition police and corrections spokesman Edward O’Donohue said the Coalition stood ready “to work shoulder to shoulder with the Government” on further reforms.
He welcomed Price’s life sentence but said questions remained “about why he was in the community in the first place”.
“There were multiple catastrophic failures of the justice system, from the failure of Corrections Victoria to apply for a detention order, from the failure of the police to oppose bail upon his release from Port Phillip Prison, to the reduction of his sentence by a court from a 3-year term to a 10-month term,” Mr O’Donohue said.
“He would still have been in jail but for that appeal decision. There were multiple opportunities for Sean Price to be kept incarcerated and the justice system failed.”
DEPRAVED KILLER WAS REMORSELESS
Price had laughed during the pre-sentence hearing as the court was told of his unquenchable thirst to kill a wealthy person.
Price had planned to kill again the following day, but instead he raped a woman in a religious bookshop before turning himself in.
He also violently robbed a man and tried to steal a BMW outside the Sunshine library.
Price sensationally sacked his defence barrister as she described Price’s humiliating personal history, opting to instead tell Justice Lasry he didn’t deserve leniency, apologising for the devastation caused by his horrific crime.
He has pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing Masa 49 times, to raping the woman, theft and attempting to steal the BMW during a two-day crime spree following the murder.
The court heard of a multitude of systemic failings that allowed Price to roam free.
When he killed Masa he was free on bail on three charges of making threats to kill a prison guard.
As a serious sexual offender, Price had been placed on the 10-year supervision order in 2012, following his release after a long stint at the Thomas Embling forensic hospital for stalking, rape and making threats to kill.
Months later he smashed cars belonging to staff.
But a County Court appeal ruling cut to 10 months a 24-month non-parole term, on a three-year, eight-month sentence.
But for his successful appeal, Price would have been in jail at the time of the murder.
The Supreme Court previously heard the Adult Parole Board allowed Price back into the community five months before he killed Masa.
During last year’s plea hearing Crown prosecutor Michele Williams, QC, struggled to explain why Price was released.
“It’s alarming, but the authorities maybe had no other choice. I don’t know. I don’t speak for the authorities and those who released him, but his sentence had expired,” she said.
The court heard an assessment on October 7, 2014 - the day of his release from jail - found him to have “an extremely high risk of violence and sexual offending in the medium to long term”.
Corrections staff given the task of monitoring Price reported he would regularly present as “paranoid, tangential and misogamist, often becoming aggressive when speaking about women’’.
PRICE JOINS VILE LIST OF KILLERS JAILED FOR LIFE