By Jane Lee and Richard Willingham
- How the system failed to keep Adrian Bayley off the streets
- Bayley had 'evil eyes', Tatts IDed Bayley, Backpacker feared Bayley would kill her
- Adrian Bayley trials: full coverage
Victoria Police has praised the victims of Adrian Bayley after he was found guilty of committing three rapes.
Bayley, who brutally raped and murdered Jill Meagher in 2012, was found guilty on Thursday of raping three other women, after being released on parole in 2010 for a string of other heinous crimes.
Two of the three recent victims, a Dutch backpacker and a St Kilda sex worker, were raped just months before Bayley killed Ms Meagher. At the time, he was out on parole after serving eight years in jail for a string of sex worker rapes in 2000.
Victoria Police issued a statement about the three secret trials, praising the "exemplary" efforts of detectives, as well as Bayley's victims, who had shown "tremendous strength".
Adrian Bayley in police custody after the rape and murder of Jill Meagher in 2012.
"We would ... like to acknowledge the bravery of the women involved, who have shown tremendous strength to see this case through to today's verdict," the statement said.
Sally Tonkin, the chief executive officer of sex worker support group St Kilda Gatehouse, said: "We're satisfied that justice has been served and hopefully there will be some relief for the victims and their families. However, we are still concerned about the level of violence against women, particularly those who are the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in our community."
Ms Tonkin said the community needed to remain alert to violence against women.
"Violence against the women who work on the streets is not a separate issue; it is on the same spectrum of the broader issue of violence against women, as Adrian Bayley's crimes unfortunately demonstrate," Ms Tonkin said.
A laneway where Adrian Bayley took one of his victims in Balaclava.Credit: Pat Scala
Punishment and rehabilitation
Bayley now has more than 20 convictions for rape.
Adrian Bayley outside court in 2013.Credit: Justin McManus
Carolyn Worth, spokeswoman for the Victorian Centres Against Sexual Assault Forum, said it was clear that Bayley was dangerous, but that the system had failed to rehabilitate him as a youth, since no state-wide treatment programs were available for adolescents before 2007.
"He's dangerous at (43). I'm not sure he would have been as dangerous at 18," Ms Worth said.
A photofit of Adrian Bayley.
Every sentence Bayley had received since he was 18 "calls into question the rehabilitation programs that were open to him".
While he has said he lied about the effectiveness of a sex-offender rehabilitation program to get parole in 2008, Ms Worth said: "I'm not sure if he lied or if it was bravado."
Rehabilitation for violent sex offenders was important even if they received life sentences, because only a few were ultimately not released on parole, she said. "They are going to come out in society at some stage and they need rehabilitation."
Victims of Crime Commissioner Greg Davies said Bayley had received "lenient" sentences for his previous crimes, given that the maximum sentence for rape was 25 years. When rehabilitation programs failed, sentences became "wholly about punishing" offenders.
"How many chances does somebody get before we say ...'You have absolutely forfeited your right to walk among the rest of us. You will go to jail and die in jail, no matter how long that takes?"
Mr Davies, a retired police officer, said the cases showed that the justice system had made the "same mistake, over and over again" in relation to a repeat sex offender: "The rights of the entire community to go about their lawful business in safety exceeds, in my view, the rights of a predatory criminal recidivist to be treated with leniency."
The parole system
The Andrews government and the Opposition have also weighed in on Bayley's latest trials.
Corrections Minister Wade Noonan said Bayley's crimes were "horrendous and shocking" and sickened him.
He praised the previous Coalition government's reforms, which he said made the state's parole laws the strongest in the country. More than 800 people who applied for parole last year did not get it and another 700 had theirs cancelled.
Retired High Court judge Ian Callinan made 23 recommendations to improve parole and Mr Noonan said nearly all were implemented, with the remaining measure due to be put in place by December.
Mr Noonan said the government had to remain vigilant on parole and sentencing and that one of its priorities was to ensure rehabilitation programs in prison were effective.
Opposition leader Matthew Guy said: "We are certainly looking at one of the worst criminals, certainly in modern times, in the state of Victoria."
He cautioned the Labor government against rolling back law and order reforms: "If there are changes that the government needs, we stand ready to work with the government to ensure that community safety comes first."
- With Mark Russell