Bobby Medcraft: Four killers learn their sentence in court
The four Tasmanians found guilty of slaying young Burnie dad Bobby Medcraft have learnt their fate. One in particular, Cody Sheehan, was “lucky to escape” a verdict of murder, the judge told the court.
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The four North-West Tasmanians found guilty by a jury of the manslaughter of young Burnie dad Bobby Medcraft have learnt their fate.
Last month, a Launceston jury found Kelsey Maree Ford, 24, her brother Lucas Shane Ford, 31, Michael William Hanlon, 54, and Cody Christopher Shane Sheehan, 34, guilty of the charge. They acquitted on the more serious charge of murder.
On Monday, Justice Robert Pearce sentenced the four. Sheehan was sentenced to serve eight years, Lucas Ford six-and-a-half, Hanlon five-and-a-half, and Kelsey Ford five. All will be eligible for parole after serving half their respective sentences.
Justice Pearce said he believed Sheehan was “lucky to escape” a verdict of murder. He said Lucas Ford was the driving force behind the plan to exact retribution on Mr Medcraft.
Justice Pearce said the jury’s verdict obliterated the notion the defendants were acting in self-defence.
While he accepted Mr Medcraft and company were the initial aggressors – “I do not for one moment condone Mr Medcraft’s conduct earlier in the evening,” Justice Pearce said – the fact Mr Medcraft, girlfriend Kalinda Morrisson and Mr MacDonald were fleeing in their vehicle showed it was a “fanciful” notion they were still after the defendants.
Justice Pearce found beyond reasonable doubt that, when the fatal blow was struck, Mr Medcraft had been separated from his friends and was being bashed three-on-one by Hanlon, Sheehan and Lucas Ford.
He said he was unable to conclusively determine whether Mr Medcraft was already lying face down in the garden bed when Sheehan struck him with the sword, or he was standing and it was the blow which brought him to ground.
Justice Pearce said Sheehan and Lucas Ford were the most culpable for Mr Medcraft’s death.
Mr Medcraft died of catastrophic blood loss on the morning of March 29, 2020, after being struck to the back of his right leg with a Fantasy Master sword. It severed his hamstring muscle and femoral artery.
Launceston Supreme Court heard during the course of a five-week trial Mr Medcraft barely knew his killers.
The dispute which touched off his death was started by an errant social media message sent by Luke Buckley, a friend of Mr Medcraft’s friend Jake MacDonald, to Lucas Ford.
The messages soon turned ugly and the spiralling feud primarily became between Mr Medcraft and Lucas Ford after the latter allegedly threatened to harm the deceased’s young child.
Mr Medcraft and his gang, which included Kayden Morrisson – outside whose Downlands house the final showdown occurred – attempted to locate Lucas Ford to bash him, burgling his house in the process, before an initial confrontation occurred outside Kelsey Ford’s Acton house.
After this was fortuitously broken up by a passing police unit, Mr Medcraft and his friend’s dispersed, but Kelsey Ford then obtained Mr Medcraft’s address and drove the defendants to his South Burnie address.
There then commenced a wild car chase through the suburbs of Burnie, as Kelsey Ford attempted to ram the car containing Mr Medcraft off the road. At one point, Lucas Ford leaned out and shattered the pursued vehicle’s back windscreen with a cricket bat.
The two vehicles screeched to a halt outside 4 Ritchie Ave and a wild melee ensued, which ended in Mr Medcraft lying face down in a garden bed, blood pumping from his leg.
The four defendants plus a fifth man, who was found not guilty by the jury, were arrested at the scene and charged with murder.
The jury found the more serious charge unproven after the lengthy trial.
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Originally published as Bobby Medcraft: Four killers learn their sentence in court
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