By Erin Pearson
A Melbourne mother hacked to death with an axe in her own home had done everything she could to protect herself, even resorting to wearing a safety watch, which ultimately recorded her own murder.
The judge who presided over part of the murderer’s case says if he had been forced to wear an ankle monitoring device, as he might have in other states, the victim might still be alive.
Dinush Kurera arriving at the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne last August.Credit: AAP
Nelomie Perera, 43, reached out to police, developed a safety plan and even created a code word to use with family if she feared for her life when her estranged husband Dinush Kurera, 47, returned to Australia from a work trip.
But when Kurera returned to Melbourne on December 3, 2022, he drove to Bunnings and bought an axe, with a judge finding his self-pity during his bitter divorce had transformed into homicidal rage.
He went to his ex-wife’s home in Sandhurst, in Melbourne’s south-east, and beat and stabbed her to death in front of their teenage children. A post-mortem found Perera suffered at least 35 injuries, largely to the head and neck.
During the lead-up to the trial, Justice Michael Croucher raised whether ankle monitoring bracelets could be placed on Victorians at risk of committing family violence, which might save lives like Perera’s.
Dinush Kurera and Nelomie Perera years earlier.
Croucher said Perera had done everything she could to protect herself, even obtaining and activating her safety watch, but she was hacked to death in the living and kitchen area of her own home.
“She was murdered in circumstances where she did everything she could [to protect herself]. She changed the locks on her home, moved [Kurera’s] property to a storage unit, obtained a family violence intervention order, she had a safety plan and even had a safety watch fitted,” Croucher said.
“Despite all of this, her worst fears were realised. All her safety watch did was record the horrible sounds of her murder.
“Maybe it’s too big of a step for a person not being charged with anything [to be made to wear a tracking device], but maybe they should, in some cases. It might add another layer of protection for people.”
In Western Australia, family violence offenders will soon be forced to wear ankle monitors as the government there moves to tighten coercive control laws.
It follows a spate of murders in the state last year that prompted the government to mandate the usage of GPS trackers when a person is declared a serial family violence offender or the subject of a restraining order and commits further offences.
In May, the NSW government’s plans for major new bail reform included the rollout of electronic monitoring bracelets for men accused of serious domestic violence offences.
While no timeline has been put on the plan, Premier Chris Minns said the law changes would require men to wear an ankle bracelet when released on bail after being accused of a serious domestic violence offence.
RECENT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE RELATED HOMICIDE SENTENCES
- Dinush Kurera - 37 years with a non-parole of 30 years
- Sven Lindermann - 31 years with a non-parole period of 25 years
- Adrian Basham - life with a non-parole period of 30 years
- Osman Shaptafaj - life with a non-parole period of 35 years
- Thomas Bednar - 29 years with a non-parole period of 23 years
- Joon Seong Tan - 28 years with a non-parole period of 23 years
- James Fairhall - 25 years with a non-parole period of 18.5 years
- Zoran Pandilovski - 24 years with a non-parole period of 17 years
- Rebecca Payne - 16 years with a non-parole period of 10 years
- Adam Brown - 24 years with a non-parole period of 17 years
Curtin University Professor Donna Chung said the change would help better protect at-risk people as long as it’s implemented correctly.
“Evidence internationally shows that overall, those with a violence restraining order who were also subject to electronic monitoring were more likely to stay out of the geographical areas they were not allowed, than those without electronic monitoring,” Chung said.
“But as with all electronic monitoring, there is a group of highly dangerous offenders who will not comply.
“For electronic monitoring to be effective, it’s vital to have ongoing communication with the victims/survivors to monitor risk and ensure safety, as a disconnect between offender monitoring and survivor support can compromise safety.”
Currently, Victoria does not have a state-run electronic monitoring scheme for people facing criminal charges and on bail.
However, this masthead in April revealed that Corrections Victoria oversees a program monitoring some adult offenders released on parole, community correction orders or post-sentence supervision orders through GPS-tracking devices.
But the scheme is viewed with suspicion by some magistrates and judges who see the devices as technologically unreliable and an impost on police.
“I would be reluctant to support such a condition where the supplier of the device was a private company that regarded an accused person as their client,” then Supreme Court judge Lex Lasry said during a bail application in 2020.
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