Justice failed Jill Meagher

YESTERDAY, the Victorian justice system should have been standing in the dock alongside Adrian Ernest Bayley.

YESTERDAY, the Victorian justice system should have been standing in the dock alongside Adrian Ernest Bayley.

It was Bayley who so viciously and wantonly raped and murdered Jill Meagher.

But it was the justice system that gave him the opportunity to commit his horrific crime.

The convicted sexual predator should never have been on parole when he attacked Ms Meagher as she walked home in September last year.

This young woman would not have died had Bayley remained in jail after multiple rape convictions. He should never have been granted parole. Nor should he have been allowed to remain free on bail after being convicted of a brutal assault.

His lawyer in a case where his male victim was taken to hospital after an unprovoked attack in a Geelong street applied for bail on the severity of sentence. Not only was the sentence of three months reasonable in the circumstances, but bail should have been refused because Bayley was on parole for his previous rape offences.

Parole is too often granted when the parole board too readily believes there is a chance of rehabilitation. In the case of repeat offenders such as Bayley, there should be no such chance. The release of calculating and manipulative offenders, as Bayley has been described, puts at risk the lives of their potential victims.

Former homicide detective Charlie Bezzina writes in the Herald Sun that "seeing such perpetrators walk from the courts on bail or parole, when you know their history, is absolutely soul destroying".

Giving Bayley the opportunity to kill has destroyed the lives of Ms Meagher's husband and her family. Tom Meagher described his wife as the love of his life in a statement read to the Supreme Court.

The tragedy of Ms Meagher's death is compounded by the inadequacy of the Victorian justice system. Other murders have been committed by criminals on parole, yet authorities continue to focus on the perceived rights of the perpetrators instead of the crushing reality that has befallen the victims and their families.

The Victorian Government has tightened the law dealing with repeat offenders.

Sex offenders and violent criminals convicted of similar offences while on parole will be automatically returned to prison.

But their original sentence must properly reflect the seriousness of their crime.

This is the least the state of Victoria can do for Jill Meagher.