‘Model prisoner’ killed ex-partner

A coroner in the Northern Territory has recommended stricter supervision of violent offenders after a man believed by authorities to be a model prisoner was able to stalk, kidnap and fatally injure his ex-partner while he was out on parole.

Lorenzo Deegan. Picture: Facebook 1

A coroner in the Northern Territory has recommended stricter supervision of violent offenders after a man believed by authorities to be a model prisoner was able to stalk, kidnap and fatally injure his ex-partner while he was out on parole.

The woman, known as Rob­erta, repeatedly tried to escape from Lorenzo Deegan, who was on conditional release from a jail sentence for a traumatic brain ­injury and bone fractures inflicted on another man during an earlier attempt to get to Roberta.

Roberta was not warned that Deegan would be rejoining the general public because, Acting Coroner Elisabeth Armitage found, Roberta was not listed as a victim in the offending for which Deegan was serving a sentence.

Deegan was able to track her down using a clandestine mobile phone obtained while he was ­undergoing rehabilitation. Authorities described him as a “quiet participant” who was “able to identify strategies” to recognise and deal with violence.

At almost the same time, he was sending text messages ­intended for Roberta, warning if she did not join him, “I am coming up there and I’m gonna smash the f..k outta you”.

Deegan used the cover of visiting his children to trick corrections and child protection agencies into paying for him to travel to Darwin, where he snuck off to hunt Roberta instead.

A North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency staff member meant to be supervising Deegan did not correctly report his ­absconding to his parole officer.

Deegan was able to drink while on parole, evading “not … very random” breath tests.

He found Roberta, bashed her and coerced her into returning with him to Katherine.

“The first night they were ­together in Darwin, Lorenzo ­assaulted Roberta. Sadly when she asked a family member to call the police, she was told the phone was ‘out of charge’,” Ms Armitage said in her findings.

“She was assaulted again the next day and again when the car was being packed for the return trip to Katherine. She was not permitted to collect any belongings. She was assaulted again on the drive to Katherine.”

The assaults continued. Ms Armitage said when Roberta was finally able to call the police, “they did nothing to help her”.

“To the contrary, police members were rude to her and dismissed her complaints,” she said.

“They failed to follow any of their procedures concerning domestic violence complaints. In addition, they failed to use available electronic monitoring device information to assist them to ­locate and arrest Lorenzo.”

Roberta was eventually killed in the “party house” where Deegan was approved to be living, having spent much of the night alone and sober, hidden in a bedroom. It was his seventh known assault on her in the period leading up to her death in 2019.

Deegan pleaded guilty in 2020 to four assaults and negligent manslaughter. In sentencing him to 10 years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of six, NT ­Supreme Court judge Judith Kelly reminded Deegan he had first claimed Roberta was drunk.

“You claimed … you had seen her wake up in the morning and drink water and that she had choked on the water. You said that you had tried to revive her, but you could not. That was a lie,” Justice Kelly said.

“The cause of death was the application of blunt force to her torso, causing a fracture of her rib, which perforated her spleen … had she been provided with medical attention in a timely fashion, the injury to her spleen would not have been fatal.”

In an exclusive interview with The Weekend Australian last week, Justice Kelly spoke about a “total epidemic” of domestic violence against Aboriginal women, often involving men who believed they had “ownership of a woman”. She mentioned 52 ­female Aboriginal homicide victims since 2000.

Ms Armitage quoted from that interview in her findings into Roberta’s death. She said coronial records showed 65 Aboriginal women had been killed by their current or former partners ­between August 2000 and ­Roberta’s death.

The findings come after The Australian’s three-part series on Ruby, who was raped by her ­father in Yuendumu and forced to flee her hometown after he was jailed.

Some assaults took place in the house where Kumanjayi Walker stayed before he threatened police with an axe and was shot by Constable Zachary Rolfe.