Call for mandatory life without parole for murder with sexual assault

The pending re-release of a brutal and remorseless killer who raped and murdered a Darwin woman in 1988 has sparked fresh national debate over mandatory sentencing.

Eileen Culleton, the sister of rape victim Anne Marie Culleton. Picture: Danielle Smith

The pending re-release of a brutal and remorseless killer who raped and murdered a Darwin woman in 1988 has sparked fresh national debate over mandatory sentencing, with the victim’s family demanding life without parole for a new offence of murder with sexual assault.

Jonathan Bakewell was originally sentenced to life without parole in the Northern Territory for the savage and random attack on 20-year-old Anne-Marie Culleton at her Darwin flat, where she was raped, strangled and left for days before her body was found.

Bakewell was subsequently re-sentenced in the NT when the life without parole sentence was abolished and served out the rest of a new 28-year non-parole period in South Australia after winning permission on compassionate grounds to transfer to Adelaide’s Yatala jail to be closer to his dying father.

Since his release in Adelaide in 2016, Culleton’s family has been dismayed to learn he has breached the terms of his parole four times by committing drug ­offences and was arrested and detained in Adelaide last month over a potential fifth breach that is now under consideration by the SA Parole Board.

Culleton’s sister Eileen told The Australian that the endless “cat and mouse game” with the Parole Board was subjecting her family to great stress and anger and would not be happening if the original life without parole sentence had not been scrapped.

Ms Culleton is campaigning for the national introduction of the original life without parole laws for a new offence of murder with sexual assault, and is winning support from the SA Labor opposition, which is eyeing the pro­posal ahead of next year’s SA election.

Ms Culleton says a precedent has been set by NSW laws for the murder of police officers where offenders are denied the option of receiving a non-parole period.

She hit out at the fact that the courts calibrated sentences and non-parole periods on the basis of whether female victims had been attacked with weapons or not, as well as the length and nature of their physical suffering.

Rape victim Anne Marie Culleton was murdered in 1988.

“The courts have set up a ­macabre hierarchy of depravity where you can actually get rewarded for being marginally less evil than another comparable sex offender,” she said.

“It should not matter whether the woman was tortured for 10 minutes or 10 hours — it is an insult to them and unbearable for families.

“We are just making excuses for men who in cases like these should be taken out of circulation.

“The whole horrible merry-go-round in this case would have stopped if life without parole had never been abolished, which is why I am asking for it to be reintroduced nationally.”

Ms Culleton said she had written to former attorney-general Christian Porter after launching a change.org petition last November asking for consideration of her proposal at this year’s first meeting of national attorneys-general. That proposal was rejected but she is pursuing it at the state level, where she has won a commitment from Labor to consider what is effectively a mandatory sentencing proposal.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Kyam Maher and party leader Peter Malinauskas have both spoken to Ms Culleton and are planning an announcement soon.

“I and SA Labor are very sympathetic towards Eileen’s frustrations,” Mr Malinauskas said. “Any time offenders breach parole, it causes great anxiety for victims and their families.

“My team will continue to work with Eileen to contemplate potential law reform.”

SA Attorney-General Vickie Chapman said she felt great sympathy for the Culleton family but stressed there was already an option at law for judges not to impose a non-parole period.

“Anne-Marie Culleton was taken from her loved ones in a senseless, barbaric act,” she said.

“Nothing will ever replace her, and her family and friends have therefore been imposed a cruel life sentence.

Murderer Jonathan Bakewell.

“In SA, there is the option for a sentencing court to decline to set a non-parole period for an offence of murder — this can be applied when the court considers it ­appropriate.

“This power has been exercised in the past, and remains available for judges to use at their ­discretion.”

Ms Culleton said there were too many cases where the courts failed to do so, including the 2016 rape and murder of outback nurse Gayle Woodford, where the judge still gave a non-parole period to her killer, despite a history of depraved sexual violence by the offender and the savage nature of Woodford’s passing.

“Crimes like these are inherently intentional and cannot be excused,” Ms Culleton said.

“We have to get a lot more ­serious about this as a community, and if that means stricter sentencing parameters for the worst possible cases, then so be it.”