Bobby Allan’s killers, Graeme Vickerstaff, Colin Booth and Dean Welsh, face court on manslaughter
Two of the three men who killed a ‘larrikin’ father, then went to a McDonald’s for a feed in their bloodstained clothes as their victim lay dead.
Crime in Focus
Don't miss out on the headlines from Crime in Focus. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Video: bikie at gun range before alleged hit job
- Brave fireys save Braidwood during massive weekend bushfire
- Greens fail in bid to ban Alan Jones’s face from Canberra buses
Two drug addicts went on a Maccas run still covered in blood just hours after taking part in the brutal manslaughter of “larrikin” Bobby Allan.
The ACT Supreme Court on Monday heard Grame Jarrett Vickerstaff, 47, Dean Phillip Welsh, 49, and Colin Maxwell Booth, 35, brutally killed 48-year-old roof tiler Bobby Allan at his Rivett home in December last year, with Vickerstaff bludgeoning him with a metal baseball bat after blinding him by spraying automotive degreaser.
Welsh blocked the door while Booth stood just outside the front door.
In the hours that followed, Welsh and Booth were caught on security cameras catching a cab to Manuka McDonald’s on Flinders Way, for a feed, with blood stains on their clothes.
All three have pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Mr Allan had struggled with an ice addiction and dealt drugs and the three assailants showed up to his house planning to rob him until Vickerstaff began hitting him with the bat, the court heard.
It later emerged Vickerstaff thought Allan had been sleeping with his then-girlfriend.
Mr Allan died on the doorstep of a nearby house, having ran there for help, while his three attackers ransacked his house.
None of the men showed any reaction throughout a series of moving victim impact statements read by Mr Allan’s family.
The mother of four of Mr Allan’s children, Trish Campbell, said her sadness was mixed with feelings of “deep disdain” for the effects of drug addiction.
“While I hope that the sentence fits the crime, I also hope that these folk, lost for whatever reason, turn their lives around and fill the world with love instead of hate,” she said.
“Robbie has been robbed of this privilege.”
Mr Allan’s father, Robert Campbell, said Vickerstaff “had the audacity to feel justified brutally bashing my son believing he may have bonked a girlfriend”.
“It still haunts and sickens me to the core that these three splurged their ill-gotten spoils on drugs, food and booze while my son’s cold, dead body lay in the morgue,” he said.
Mr Allan’s stepfather, former detective Jock Allan, said: “I could not begin to imagine what would make another human being treat another in this manner”.
Mr Allan’s mother said her son was “a free spirit doing things his way, good hearted, a larrikin with a sense of humour, an infectious laugh and a mischievous smile”.
“It kills me to think what he endured, the pain he suffered, the struggle to free himself from those evil monsters only to die alone on a neighbour’s doorstep,” she said.
“Not only did they leave him to die, they stole from his house, caught a taxi to McDonald’s for a meal with his blood on their clothes …”
“What were they celebrating? Bobby’s death? I cannot comprehend this kind of evilness to another human being.”
Sentencing proceedings resume at a later date.
Originally published as Bobby Allan’s killers, Graeme Vickerstaff, Colin Booth and Dean Welsh, face court on manslaughter