Tag Archives: Melbourne

Former top Vic Lib Damien Mantach charged over $1.5m taken from party

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 Updated 18/11/15 2.30pm

Not the first time either…. he had a go at making some extra bucks in the apple isle of Tassie too a while back and was moved on…mmm just like those priests who have rumours made about them tongue in cheek)

Former Victorian Liberal Party state director Damien Mantach.

Former Victorian Liberal Party state director Damien Mantach.

Former Victorian Liberal Party state director Damien Mantach has been charged with 44 counts of obtaining financial advantage totalling about $1.5 million.

In August, Mantach was accused of embezzling election campaign funds, with the money alleged to have vanished over four years to fund his lifestyle.

An audit of the party’s finances after last year’s state election loss uncovered unauthorised financial transactions, with money missing from both state and federal campaign funds.

Victoria Police fraud and extortion squad were called in to investigate.

Police said a 42-year-old man from Ocean Grove is to appear in the Melbourne Magistrates Court this afternoon.

Victoria Police investigate Liberal Party state director over embezzlement claims worth $1.5m

By Jean Edwards

Updated 20 Aug 2015, 7:27pm

Liberal leader Matthew Guy gives an interview.
  Liberal leader Matthew Guy says police will investigate the missing campaign funds. (ABC News: Alison Savage)

The police fraud squad is investigating allegations former Victorian Liberal Party state director Damien Mantach embezzled around $1.5 million of election campaign funds.

The money is alleged to have vanished over four years to fund Mr Mantach’s lifestyle.

An audit of the party’s finances after last year’s state election loss uncovered unauthorised financial transactions linked to Mr Mantach, with money missing from both state and federal campaign funds.

The Victoria Police fraud and extortion squad has been called in to investigate.

Liberal Party president Michael Kroger said Mr Mantach had admitted to wrongdoing.

“We feel profoundly betrayed and terribly disappointed with what’s happened,” Mr Kroger said.

Key points:

  • Liberal Party accuses former state director of embezzling $1.5m
  • Alleged theft happened over four years
  • Victoria Police fraud and extortion squad called in to investigate
  • Party believes Mantach took the money to fund his lifestyle

He said the party believed Mr Mantach had acted alone.

“We’re not aware that anyone at the party head office or any officials had any involvement at all,” he said.

It also emerged that Mr Mantach repaid tens of thousands of dollars during his time as state director of the Tasmanian branch.

In a letter to members posted on Facebook, Tasmanian Liberal president Geoff Page said in March 2008 that when he left the role, Mr Mantach fully repaid a liability of nearly $48,000 for personal expenses.

Mr Page said the division considered the matter closed and had robust internal financial processes.

Mr Kroger said he did not believe the missing money influenced the 2014 election result, or that it would affect the next federal election.

Liberal leader Matthew Guy said the party was furious at what he called a “pretty basic effort at embezzlement”.

“We want our money back,” he said.

“We want this matter sent to the police and we will be doing everything we can to ensure that justice is done.

“I saw someone making a comment that we’re white hot with anger, that’s just the start of it.”

Mr Kroger said the missing money was confined to the party’s Victorian division and he was confident some of it could be recovered through assets bought with the funds.

Mr Kroger conceded the Liberal Party had failed to properly monitor spending.

“Obviously it should have been picked up years ago — it wasn’t,” he said.

Former premier Denis Napthine, who led the party during last year’s campaign, said he was surprised and bitterly disappointed by the allegations.

The party’s administrative committee met this morning to discuss how to deal with the missing money.

Mr Mantach has been contacted for comment.

 

The mafia, metadata and me: the day Stan called me into an ecstasy sting

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The mafia, metadata and me: the day Stan called me into an ecstasy sting

Nick McKenzie

Mafia in Australia – Drugs, Murder and Politics

The mafia continues to flourish in Australia despite major police operations, as this joint Four Corners/Fairfax Media investigation reveals.

When the phone vibrated in my pocket in September 2007, I had no idea the incoming call would plunge me into the middle of Australia’s biggest Mafia investigation in decades.

I was also unaware that the caller, who identified himself as “Stan”, was, in fact, a driven and entrepreneurial drug trafficker from Griffith, NSW, called Pat Barbaro.

Federal Police and Customs agents with some of the Ecstasy and Cocaine after the drug bust.Federal Police and Customs agents with some of the Ecstasy and Cocaine after the drug bust. Photo: John Woudstra

Barbaro had organised the world’s biggest ecstasy shipment into Melbourne in June 2007. But by the time he rang me, three months later, he was unable to locate the shipping container packed with his $500 million load.

Calling me, and then sending a series of texts from several mobile phones registered in fake names, was part of a desperate plan by Barbaro to either locate his shipment or confirm his suspicions that the police had seized his drugs.

He was hoping I would reach out to police or waterfront sources to do this, and then report my findings. To say his plan failed spectacularly would be an understatement.

Unbeknownst to either me or “Stan,” police were intercepting the text messages, which included detailed descriptions of the size and likely location of the drug shipment. These text messages, and analysis of the corresponding metadata, were used to prove Barbaro had organised the drug shipment.

But that was not the only implication. Over the past six months, federal police have used the scenario as a case study to convince the Federal Government of the need to pass laws ensuring telcos store the metadata generated when a person uses a phone or computer.

As the hulking Barbaro walked around Melbourne’s CBD, meeting bikies, South Asian money launderers and other Mafia bosses, he carried up to a dozen phones. One was his personal mobile, with a subscription under his own name.

The other phones were “burners”, which were registered in false names and regularly replaced with new phones. The problem for Barbaro is that these burners were hitting the same mobile phone towers as his regular phone.

Barbaro’s personal phone and the burners were pinging off the same towers so often that police were able to prove the burners belonged to Barbaro.

According to the Director of Public Prosecution’s Andrea Pavleka, the texts sent from the “Stan” burners “showed that Barbaro had critical knowledge of the contents of that container”.

“That was a terrific link for the prosecution to have in this particular matter.”

Back in 2007, I knew none of this.

In fact, had I known my communications were being intercepted, I would have been furious.

Many of my sources are banned by their employer from speaking to me, or any other reporter, so the prospect of any innocent whistleblower being outed would have concerned me greatly.

I only learned this many months later of the interception. From all the checks I have since conducted – and there have been many – no source of mine was compromised and the AFP agents involved acted professionally and with regard to the sensitivities of my trade.

That said, ever since 2007, I have implemented a range of measures to protect sources’ communications — steps not unlike those suggested by Malcolm Turnbull during the recent debate about metadata.

Ever since the phone buzzed that day in my pocket, and “Stan” briefly entered my life, I’ve been especially conscious about how a person’s communications leave a trail, no matter how careful they are. It is a lesson the now jailed Barbaro has, no doubt, also learned well.

Watch part two of a joint Fairfax and ABC Four Corners mafia investigation on ABC1 8.30 PM Monday.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman tells child abuse royal commission reformed paedophiles deserve leniency???????? Really WTF

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These people are living in another world seriously…Religious beliefs have become way too important in the modern world. Time to get real people…
Updated 13/02/15
The head rabbi of Melbourne‘s Yeshivah Centre has told the royal commission into child sexual abuse he believes a gay person can be “cured” by therapy, like a paedophile.
By Jean Edwards

Fri 13 Feb 2015, 1:06pm

Rabbi Zvi Telsner
Rabbi Zvi Telsner said he believed paedophiles could change their ways with counselling and spiritual guidance. (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse)
Related Story: Reformed paedophiles should not feel like ‘scum of the Earth’: rabbi

The head rabbi of Melbourne’s Yeshivah Centre has told the royal commission into child sexual abuse he believes a gay person can be “cured” by therapy, like a paedophile.

Rabbi Zvi Telsner told the commission he believed there was a possibility paedophiles could be cured by counselling and spiritual guidance.

When asked if therapy could do the same for someone who is gay, he replied: “I would say the same thing can happen to someone who is gay, I would suspect. There is a possibility, I’m not discounting that”.

Rabbi Telsner said therapy could help paedophiles change their behaviour.

“There’s a certain belief that if someone for example after 20 or 25 years has not committed any offences, and all of this time has gone to therapy, there would be a good possibility that person may have been able to change his way of life,” he said.

“If you see that over the last 20-odd years the person has been able to control themselves being amongst children, there would be a possibility that he is in control of himself.”

Rabbi denies besmirching child abuse victims

The Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse is examining how Jewish schools in Melbourne and Sydney have handled allegations of child sexual abuse since the 1980s.

Last week, the inquiry heard Melbourne’s Yeshivah Centre tried to “cure” serial sex offender David Cyprys and continued to employ him more than 20 years after victims reported he had sexually abused them.

Rabbi Telsner denied besmirching victims of child sexual abuse in two sermons he delivered in 2011.

The sermons were allegedly directed at a victim who gave evidence to the inquiry under the alias, AVB, and whistleblower Manny Waks.

Both said they and their families had been shunned and subjected to ongoing bullying and intimidation for speaking out.

Rabbi Telsner accepted he could have corrected misconceptions about his preaching four years ago, after being accused of standing by and letting them fester.

“I don’t believe it was in the wake of my sermons, and if any of my sermons caused them to believe that, I apologise profusely and regret that anyone took that message that I was meaning them,” he said.

The Rabbi denied starting a community campaign to shun those who spoke out, but accepted he was complicit because he did not preach against it.

AVB was sexually assaulted at the age of 10 by convicted child abusers Daniel Hayman and David Cyprys in the 1980s, but he remained silent for 20 years.

Manny Waks went public in 2011 with allegations he was repeatedly sexual abused as a boy at Yeshivah College and accusations of a cover-up.

More on this story:

Update 11/02/15

Child abuse royal commission: Rabbi Yosef Feldman resigns as director of Yeshiva centre

Wed 11 Feb 2015, 12:42pm

The director of the orthodox Jewish Yeshiva centre in Sydney has resigned following his appearance at the royal commission into child sexual abuse.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman’s evidence at the inquiry was widely criticised by Australia‘s broader Jewish community.

In a statement, Rabbi Feldman apologised for the comments he made to the commission and said he would step down from all responsibilities as the director on the board of management at Yeshiva.

“I apologise to anyone in the Rabbinate, the Jewish community and the wider Australian community who may have been embarrassed or ashamed by my views, words, understandings, recordings or emails about child sexual abuse or any other matter,” he said.

More to come.

 Rabbi Yosef Feldman resigns from Yeshiva Centre board

February 11, 2015 – 3:20PM

A Sydney rabbi who told a royal commission that he had not known in 2002, when he was the administrative director of a rabbinical college, that it was illegal for an adult to touch a child’s genitals has resigned.

A senior Orthodox rabbi has resigned from the board of the Yeshiva Centre in Sydney amid revelations he did not know that touching a child’s genitals could be criminal.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman this week appeared before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to give evidence on the centre’s response to child abuse allegations against its employees, where he has said that Jews who know of abuse allegations should report them to their rabbi before going to the police.

Rabbi Feldman, previously also the administrative director of the centre’s rabbinical college, resigned from the centre’s board of management on Wednesday.

“I apologise to anyone in the rabbinate, the Jewish community and the wider Australian community who may have been embarrassed or ashamed by my views, words, understandings, recordings or emails about child sexual abuse or any other matter,” he told Jewish news service J-Wire.

A spokesman for Yeshiva Centre, Rabbi Feldman’s brother, Eli Feldman, confirmed the resignation, saying this included all administrative duties. Rabbi Yosef Feldman would still be able to teach voluntarily at the centre, he said.

It is believed a large number of members of the Jewish community had called for Rabbi Yosef Feldman’s resignation after he gave evidence at the royal commission.

Rabbi Feldman said he had dedicated his life to “doing whatever I can” to protect people in need, abuse victims and particularly children “and it pains me greatly that words that I have expressed have upset victims and their families.

“In the future I will be more careful with my words, so that they are only a source of pride to the Jewish and general community,” he said.

The rabbi told the commission on Monday that the media’s coverage of child sex abuse “encourages even people who may not be real victims or may want to be considered heroes” to report to police, ABC reported.

His lawyer also told the commission that Rabbi Feldman had received death threats since Friday, when he said that when he was the administrative director of the centre’s rabbinical college in 2002, he did not know it was illegal for an adult to touch the genitals of a child.

When asked, he said: “I didn’t know that as a fact.”

Counsel assisting the commission, Maria Gerace, last week also read out a number of emails Rabbi Feldman previously wrote to fellow rabbis to argue that people who had heard a child had been abused should initially take their concerns to a rabbi and “even if [the allegations are] justified we as a Jewish community could be able to be seen to have a stronger approach to deal with it than the goyim [non-Jews]”.

The emails were written at a time when he was concerned that his then-friend and now convicted child sex offender David Cyprys was being “vilified” by the media amid abuse allegations.

Rabbi Feldman also told the commission that he had not received formal training on child abuse since 2002, when he and his father had failed to report to police that a teacher had left Australia amid abuse child abuse allegations. He said last week that training was not a “very high priority” for him given that detecting and responding to child abuse was largely a matter of “common sense”.

In his statement on Wednesday, he said: “I commit to undertake formal training and education on how to identify, handle and report abuse allegations.”

The Yeshiva Centre thanked Rabbi Feldman for his “years of selfless dedication” in a statement and said it was committed to protecting victims “including full compliance with authorities and legal procedures”.

[email protected]

By court reporter Peta Carlyon and wire

Mon 9 Feb 2015, 8:35pm

Rabbi Yosef Feldman at the royal commission
Rabbi Feldman told the royal commission sinners did not deserve to be known “all around the world” for their crimes. (ABC News)

Related Story: Sydney rabbi ‘didn’t have a clue’ an adult touching a child’s genitals was illegal

Paedophiles who are no longer abusing children should not have to spend their lives feeling like the “scum of the Earth”, a senior rabbi has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman, a leader within the Sydney Yeshivah community, told the inquiry he was friends with convicted child abuser Daniel Hayman when he was arrested and charged in 2011.

He said he did not think it was fair that a member of the community should go to jail for an historical case of child abuse if they had already repented and received treatment.

Audio: Royal Commission hears Yeshivah Rabbi wants repentant Jewish paedophiles treated leniently (PM)

“I would be asking for more leniency on people who have shown that they haven’t offended in the last 20 years or decades ago, and have psychological analyses that this is the case,” Rabbi Feldman said.

Once someone is not a paedophile any more or is showing [he] is not acting wrongly any more, that should be considered in a very strong way.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman

“Once someone is not a paedophile any more or is showing [he] is not acting wrongly any more, that should be considered in a very strong way.

The more lenient approach would show “when you do the right thing, you won’t get mistreated badly and it’s not the end of the world … then you are not treated like a pariah, like a scum of the Earth”.

Rabbi Feldman lashed out at the media, saying publicity about child sex abuse “encourages even people who may not be real victims or may want to be considered heroes” to go to the police.

“Like we have seen here in Melbourne, we had one rabbi who was ultimately vindicated, and I was very against too much of a public situation, like I see with the media also, they go out in a very public way, and also exaggerating, at times lying,” he said.

“I’m worried about the effect of the hype of child abuse.”

His lawyer told the commission Rabbi Feldman had received death threats since Friday’s hearing, in which he said he did not understand it was illegal for an adult to touch a child’s genitals.

‘The less the media is involved, the better’

Rabbi Feldman was asked about an apparent conflict between one of his public statements and a private email he sent in mid-2011.

The commission heard Rabbi Feldman had once written to the Sydney Beth Din (Jewish court) that convicted paedophile David Kramer’s “life and family is being ruined now for no good reason.”

In a sometimes heated exchange, he told counsel assisting the commission, Maria Gerace, he was entitled to his own opinions, and denied they were at odds with the rule of law.

He said he was concerned about miscarriages of justice occurring.

“It’s obvious I care about people,” he said.

“A rabbi cares mostly about people.”

Rabbi Feldman told the commission, Jewish law dictated that “you have to be very careful about not embarrassing people” and “the less the media is involved the better”.

He said sinners did not deserve to be known “all around the world” for their crimes.

“The publicity of someone being charged and the naming and shaming, it’s already public,” Rabbi Feldman said.

Ms Gerace responded that perhaps it would give more encouragement to others who were abused to come forward and face their perpetrators.

“I have thought about that and I have no problem with the general pronouncement,” Rabbi Feldman said.

“But not at times when it seems like a PR process and it seems like when there’s hype and then you join in the hype … it’s all false, that sort of thing.

“If the rabbis would come out at other times, at normal time, nothing to do with any hype, with society… saying this is a strong issue we should deal with, that is fantastic and the victims are the most important and we have to deal with that.”

Rabbi Feldman said he did believe in secular law and reporting child abuse immediately.

“But not matters of a PR situation … that’s what brings about false charges and things of this nature,” he said.

ABC/AAP

 

Rabbi Yosef Feldman says media hype causes ‘fake’ abuse victims

The Australian

February 09, 2015 1:19PM

Rabbi feared ‘false’ abuse claims

Rabbi Yosef Feldman leaves the Melbourne County Court after giving evidence at the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse. Source: News Corp Australia

AN orthodox rabbi has argued media “hype” causes “fake victims” to make allegations of child sexual abuse, while admitting he feared people were making false allegations against his friend, David Cyprys, who was later convicted of serious child sex offences.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman, rabbinical administrator of Bondi’s Chabad Yeshiva centre, today told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse he had expressed concern when he learnt in 2011 that Beth Dins in Sydney and Melbourne were planning to make public statements encouraging abuse victims to come forward.

“Too much hype causes miscarriages of justice,” he said. “I didn’t think it was the time and place for the rabbis to come out in the media with public statements.

“I think it’s bad for the Jews.”

Rabbi Feldman wrote a series of emails to other rabbis in 2011 — when abuse allegations involving Yeshivah College in Melbourne became public amid a police investigation — arguing Jews with information about child sex abuse allegations should see a rabbi rather than police.

He said today that he would “highly encourage” Australia to change its laws to allow rabbis to assess the veracity of child sex abuse complaints before encouraging victims to alert police.

He also said greater leniency should be shown to paedophiles who had committed sex offences years ago, if it could be shown they hadn’t offended since. And that would be proved how?

“I would lobby the government about this if I could,” he said. “They do the right thing and they are shown to do the right thing, (then) they deserve a bit more respect.”

Rabbi Feldman said he was worried at the time that further complaints might be laid against Cyprys, a friend who had worked at Yeshivah in Melbourne for decades.

Cyprys is currently serving an eight year prison sentence for abusing several boys at Yeshiva.

“I was worried the publicity would bring about fake victims, “ Rabbi Feldman said.

“The reality is they make a whole issue of child abuse and it encourages people to accuse people of abuse when … they are really innocent.”

Other rabbis have condemned Rabbi Feldman’s views and called for victims to be encouraged to go to police.

The commission heard threats had been made against Rabbi Feldman on social media since he began giving evidence.

The hearing continues.

 

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Do you know this guy? victim snapped him allegedly flashing at Melbourne’s Sandringham beach

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Sleazy disgusting snake bellies like these need to be weeded out exposed and jailed. Only then will the have the slightest chance to help themselves. Contact police anywhere any time or call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. He has to be known and dobbing him in does not mean you need to be exposed as a family member, workmate or otherwise…Regards Robbo

Victim takes photo of alleged flasher at Melbourne’s Sandringham beach

Mon 12 Jan 2015, 6:38pm

Police are hunting for an alleged flasher caught on camera by his victim
Photo: Police want to speak to this man. (Supplied: Victoria Police)
Map: Sandringham 3191

A woman who was allegedly indecently assaulted by a flasher at Sandringham beach, in Melbourne’s south-east, has managed to take a photo of her attacker.

The woman, aged in her 40s, was walking her dog along the foreshore path earlier this month when she was approached by a man wearing a towel.

Police said he exposed himself to the woman before indecently assaulting her.

Detective acting inspector Brad Daly said she managed to take a photo of her attacker before he was disturbed by a passersby and fled.

“I’m sure she was very stressed but she was cool enough to take a photo of him,” he said.

It is believed he may have left the area in a silver hatchback.

Police have released the photo taken by the woman as part of an appeal for help.

Anyone with information can contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

AFP get another 135 kg of ICE worth $130m off our streets

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Follow the money and the drugs will follow. The minnows they caught with the drugs are disposable, with a queue of guys ready to take their places.

That is a lot of money to the man on the street to lose, but if you haven’t seen the brilliant show called “breaking bad”. The drugs they lost are are a mere few batches away for the big players. Not much else the Australian Federal Police can do.

from the ABC Thu 31 Jul 2014, 9:36am

A joint AFP-ACC raid in Melbourne has netted 135 kilograms of methamphetamine.

A joint AFP-ACC raid in Melbourne has netted 135 kilograms of methamphetamine. (ABC News: Tony Nicholls)

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have seized 135 kilograms of methamphetamine with a street value of $130 million from a Melbourne apartment.

Police said they located four suitcases containing the drugs in an inner city Melbourne apartment on Tuesday night.

The drugs represent 1.3 million street deals, police said.

The AFP and Australian Crime Commission (ACC) executed search warrants in Melbourne yesterday and arrested four Taiwanese nationals, all aged in their twenties.

Eligo Taskforce since 2012:

  • Aprox $40 million in cash seized
  • Over $800 million of illicit drugs seized
  • $30 million in assets restrained
  • Identified more than 179 targets previously unknown to law enforcement officials
  • Disrupted 25 serious organised crime groups
  • Shut down 18 clandestine drug labs, three of which were commercial scale
  • Raised $12 million in tax assessments with 150 referrals to the ATO for further action on evasion and money laundering.

The seizure and arrests comes after intelligence from the Eligo National Task Force.

AFP Commander Bruce Giles said it was a significant seizure for the country and the state.

“Ice, we see as one of the most dangerous and insidious diseases in our communities and the fact that we have removed over 1.3 million street deals of methamphetamine has got to be good for the Victorian and Australian community,” he said.

“I think in terms of an organised crime syndicate operating in Australia, clearly they will see yet again that agencies cooperate effectively together to join forces to combat the drug trade.”

The four men, Chun Lan, 28, Ming Hsuan Ou and Li Ping Chen, both 23, and Shu Yi Lin, 20, appeared briefly in the Melbourne Magistrates Court just before 1:00pm (AEST).

They were all charged with possessing and trafficking a commercial quantity of a border-controlled drug. The charges carry a maximum penalty of life in prison.

The 135kg of crystal methylamphetamine, or ice, worth about $130 million

The 135kg of crystal methylamphetamine, or ice, worth about $130 million

The court heard the men, who were assisted by a translator, have Australian tourist visas and their arrest yesterday is their first time in custody.

They have been remanded in custody until their next court hearing. Magistrate Jelena Popovic told the men they could apply for bail at any time.

They will return to court on November 5 for a committal mention.

A Melbourne ice haul of 135kg packed into suitcases has been uncovered after authorities tracked profits of a crime syndicate.

Authorities tracking money linked to offshore crime syndicates have seized $130 million worth of ice packed into plastic bags and stacked in four bulging suitcases in a Melbourne apartment.

Four Taiwanese nationals in Australia on tourist visas have been charged over the crystal methylamphetamine haul.

More than 135kg of the drug was seized, an amount which police say would have been on-sold to users 1.3 million times over.

A joint Australian Federal Police and Australian Crime Commission (ACC) operation netted the illicit product, after intelligence was provided through the Eligo national task force which tracks money laundering.

ACC national manager of investigations Richard Grant said people were increasingly being targeted by cartels and offshore syndicates, focused purely on profit.

“One of the things for the Eligo task force is going after the profits and this is how we were able to track these particular syndicate members to end up with these seizures,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

AFP commander Bruce Giles said the bust was significant and investigations into the exact source of the drugs were ongoing.

“Traditionally with this quantity of ice, you would expect it to come by land or sea,” he said.

The drugs were found in four suitcases in an inner-city Melbourne apartment on Tuesday afternoon.

Four men have been charged with a range of drug offences.

A brief hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Wednesday was told the men were in Australia on tourist visas and have no fixed address within the country.

Shu Yi Lin, 20, and Li Ping Chen, 23, were both charged with possessing a commercial quantity of ice suspected of being illegally imported.

Chun Lan, 28, and Ming Hsuan Ou, 23, were each charged with trafficking a commercial quantity of ice.

Related articles

Ajay Chopra jailed for sexually assaulting women on Vline

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June 23, 2014 – 4:03PM

Ajay Chopra. Photo- James Aldersey

Ajay Chopra. Photo- James Aldersey

A man who told one of five women he sexually assaulted on a regional train service to ‘‘have a nice life’’ must spend at least 10 months in jail.

County Court judge Gerard Mullaly, in imposing a head sentence of 21 months on Ajay Chopra, said stern punishment awaited men who put their own “perverse sexual pleasure” above the rights of women.

“The sexual assault of fellow female passengers on public transport is shameful and dishonourable,” judge Mullaly said on Monday.

“Decent men do not do this.”

Chopra, 41, separately assaulted the women, aged between 18 and 30, while on the V/Line service between Melbourne and Bendigo between June and August 2011.

Chopra, of Bendigo, either assaulted the women, or tried to, when he took their hands claiming to be a palm reader and either put a woman’s hand on his crotch, or put his hand on or near their crotch, or both.

Prosecutor Neill Hutton said one of the victims felt Chopra’s erect penis under her hand and that the offender also put his hand up the woman’s dress.

“This continued until the offender got off the train at Bendigo. He turned (to the victim) and said ‘Have a nice have a nice life’, as he did so,” Mr Hutton said.

Chopra, who was travelling to and from Melbourne to work at a Telstra store, pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent assault and two charges of attempted indecent assault.

The court heard Chopra’s offending escalated in seriousness and that he had initially denied the charges, but changed his plea to guilty to “save face” with his family.

Defence counsel Mark Hird said a psychological assessment found Chopra “doesn’t want to face up to (the offending) rather than enter a genuine plea of guilty”.

Judge Mullaly said Chopra’s “shameful and concerning behaviour” had had a profound and lasting impact on his victims, significantly because of the delay in between the offending and sentencing.

The court was told one victim had suffered a severe blow to her self-confidence and was anxious, distrustful and felt constantly disappointed with herself.

Another, the judge said, had fought “a losing battle” against depression in the years since she was assaulted and felt she had lost two-and-a-half years of her life.

Judge Mullaly said the delay between offending and sentencing had “compounded” the problems of victims and that the public was entitled to an explanation.

He said the Bendigo court complex had only one court room equipped for trials by jury, and as a result, Chopra’s case was delayed until he pleaded guilty because of a backlog of cases.

Judge Mullaly said cities of a similar size to Bendigo had addressed shortages of adequate court rooms to hear jury trials.

“Bendigo stands apart and its citizens must wait too long to have cases heard,” he said.

Judge Mullaly said Chopra’s crimes also had a “corrosive” effect on the community because they added “to the unfortunate sense of fear that women have, that public transport is not safe”.

Chopra, who was supported in court by his wife, will have his name put on the sex offenders registry for life.

 

Man posing as palm reader jailed for sexually assaulting women on V/Line trains

By Peta Carlyon

Updated 44 minutes ago

Related Story: Bendigo man pleads guilty to train sex assaults
Related Story: Sex assault accused loses suppression bid

A Bendigo man has been jailed for 21 months for sexually assaulting young women on V-Line trains while posing as a palm reader.

Ajay Chopra, 41, pleaded guilty to five charges over a series of sex assaults on trains between Bendigo and Melbourne in 2011.

The court heard Chopra would pretend to be a palm reader before grabbing the women’s hands and assaulting them.

His youngest victim was 18 years old.

“All of this was a ruse, and what you were attempting to do was either to put their hand in your crotch area or put your hand in their crotch area,” Judge Gerard Mullaly said.

Prosecutor Neil Hutton said that once Chopra had hold of a woman’s hands he would resist any efforts by them to pull away.

In one case, he held his hand under a woman’s dress; in another, he held his victim’s hand against himself.

“She could feel the man’s erect penis on the back of her hand,” Mr Hutton said.

“This activity happened for most of the trip to Bendigo, where he got off the train.

“He turned and said, ‘have a nice life’, as he did so.”

Victims left fearful of using public transport

The court was also told his victims were traumatised by the assaults and felt fearful travelling on public transport, particularly with men.

“Your offending was repetitive, escalating and persistent,” Judge Mullaly said.

“The sexual assault of fellow female passengers is shameful, dishonourable conduct. Decent men do not act like this.”

The sexual assault of fellow female passengers is shameful, dishonourable conduct. Decent men do not act like this.

Judge Gerard Mullaly

The court heard Chopra moved from India with his wife to Bendigo in 2011 and had shown no insight into, nor remorse for, his crimes, instead focusing on saving face.

Judge Mullaly said he had chosen vulnerable young victims and the nature of his offending had wider ramifications for the community.

“The fact they were conducted on public transport adds to the unfortunate sense of fear that women have that public transport is not safe.

“This fear is corrosive and impacts on women’s rights to go about their lives freely.”

Chopra was placed on the sex offenders register for life and will be eligible for parole in 10 months.

Poor court facilities prolonged suffering of victims: judge

Judge Mullaly also said the delay in the matter being resolved in the courts had prolonged the suffering for Chopra’s victims.

He added that Bendigo residents were being denied proper justice because of a lack of court facilities.

Judge Gerard Mullaly has criticised the standard of court facilities at Bendigo.
Judge Gerard Mullaly has criticised the standard of court facilities at Bendigo. (Corey Hague, ABC)

He said the public deserved to know why crimes committed in 2011 had taken so long to pass through the courts.

The case began in Bendigo but had to be moved to Melbourne because there was no suitable courtroom.

“Court facilities in Bendigo are and have been for too long inadequate to uphold the criminal justice system,” Judge Mullaly said.

Judge Mullaly said its court facilities compared badly with other regional cities in Victoria of the same size.

“It stands apart.

“It’s citizens must wait too long to have their cases heard…we must urgently investigate all possibilities to open up another courtroom in Bendigo.

“This case must prompt a re-doubling of efforts.”

Adrian Bayley Pleads Guilty to Rape – Not Guilty to Murdering Jill Meagher

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MAJOR UPDATE 26/03/2015

Jill Meagher killer Adrian Bayley found guilty of three more rapes

By court reporter Peta Carlyon, Loretta Florance and staff

Updated 3 minutes ago

Adrian Bayley
Photo: Adrian Bayley has been found guilty of three more brutal rapes in the years before he murdered Jill Meagher. (Facebook)
One of Australia’s most notorious predators, murderer and serial rapist Adrian Bayley, has been found guilty of three more brutal rapes of young women in Melbourne in the years before he murdered Jill Meagher.

Bayley, 43, raped and murdered the 29-year-old ABC staffer as she walked home from a night out in Brunswick in Melbourne’s north in September 2012, in a crime that shocked the nation.

Now, it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that Bayley raped other women, including a young Dutch tourist in 2012, and two young prostitutes – one of them also in 2012 and the other almost 15 years ago.

Bayley pleaded not guilty in all three rape trials before the County Court, forcing the victims to give evidence and re-live their trauma in a series of trials that began last year and ended today.

His defence argued that while they did not dispute that the women had been victims of sexual assault, they had mistaken their attacker for Bayley because he had been so prominent in the media.

Broad suppression orders have prevented publication of any details from the three rape trials.

But with the return of the third guilty verdict the suppressions have been lifted.

Adrian Bayley pleaded not guilty in all three trials

The fresh cases against Adrian Bayley

The victim in the first trial, held in July last year, was 18 years old in late 2000, and the court heard was from a good home, but became hooked on heroin when she was 14 and turned briefly to prostitution.

In his closting arguments, Senior Prosecutor Peter Rose QC said Bayley, who worked shiftwork in a nearby bakery at the time, was the woman’s third client and her last.

Horrific details emerged in court of the teenager’s sustained ordeal at the hands of Bayley, after he drove her in his car into a narrow laneway in St Kilda, out of sight of passing traffic.

Raping his victims in his car after parking it in confined spaces to ensure they could not escape would become a critical hallmark of Bayley’s offending.

Mr Rose said that at one point during the assault, another car drove into the laneway, and the teenager banged on the back window and mouthed “help me, please help me”.

But Bayley put his fingers down her throat so she could not breathe and threatened to kill her and the car drove away.

“[Bayley] said ‘you little slut, no-one will miss you’,” Mr Rose told the first jury.

“She was frozen with fear … she had never felt such fear in her life.

ABC radio employee Jill Meagher
ABC radio employee Jill Meagher was raped and murdered by Bayley in September 2012. (Supplied)

“She believed he was taking her somewhere to kill her.”

The prosecutor told the court it would be 11 years before she told authorities what had happened, later telling police “it all added up” when she heard about Ms Meagher’s murder, and saw Bayley’s image.

When she read about Jill Meagher, she immediately identified [Adrian Bayley’s] face.

Senior Prosecutor Peter Rose QC

“When she read about Jill Meagher, she immediately identified his face,” Mr Rose said.

In a chilling twist of the case, the court heard when she was first approached by Bayley, the teenager had just come from a prostitutes’ collective centre where she had been given a pamphlet with warnings of “bad men” who had been harassing local sex workers.

The 18-year-old was reading the pamphlet when she got into Bayley’s car and told him she could not believe “how many bad people are out there”.

Bayley told her he was “one of those bad guys”, Mr Rose said.

Two more rapes just months before Jill Meagher attack

The victim in the second rape trial was another street prostitute attacked by Bayley several months before the fatal attack on Ms Meagher.

The court heard she was 25 years old when Bayley picked her up in his car and drove it into a narrow, dead-end laneway in Elwood in April 2012.

Bayley told his victim that it was stupid she did not have a pimp or a “spotter” looking out for her, the prosecutor said.

Key points

  • Adrian Bayley was brought to three separate trials from July 2014 for three rapes
  • One of the rapes happened in 2000 and two in 2012
  • He was found guilty in all three trials, after pleading not guilty
  • Suppression orders on reporting were lifted upon the conclusion of third case in March 2015
  • Bayley pleaded guilty to killing Jill Meagher in 2012 and was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of 35 years
  • He had previously served a total of 11 years in prison for the rape and attempted rape of a total of eight women
  • He was first jailed in 1991 for a minimum of three years for raping two teenagers and attempting to rape another when he was 19
  • He was jailed again in 2001 for a minimum of eight years for raping five prostitutes over six months in 2000
  • In 2012 while on parole, he assaulted a man in Geelong
  • Bayley was on parole when he raped and murdered Ms Meagher and when he raped two other women in preceding months

Mr Rose told the court that when the victim struck out with her legs, cracking the windscreen, Bayley told her that he could “keep her for ages” and no-one would know she was missing.

At one point during the attack, the court heard Bayley wound up the car’s windows to muffle his victim’s screams.

The court heard he was also preoccupied with her identifying him from his tattoos.

Eventually, she convinced him to drive to a nearby hotel to use the bathroom, and when she came out and refused his demand to get back into the car, he drove away.

It was eight months later, three months after Jill Meagher was murdered, that the 25-year-old saw a police photo on a television report about another sex attack in St Kilda and called Crime Stoppers.

The jury in the second trial took less than an hour to return a guilty verdict.

In the third trial, the victim gave evidence via video-link from the Netherlands.

The prosecutor told the court that the Dutch tourist was walking home alone from the popular Elephant and Wheelbarrow pub in St Kilda in July 2012 on the night she was attacked.

She had been walking for half an hour from the beach precinct and was almost at St Kilda Road near her Balaclava share house, when she noticed two cars parked by the side of the road.

Mr Rose said the 27-year-old was “a little drunk” and when the driver of one of the cars beckoned her over to tell her he had seen a car following her and offered to drive her home, she got in.

He covered her mouth to stop her yelling and held her throat. He told her she couldn’t get out and no-one would hear her. She was afraid she was going to be killed.

Senior Prosecutor Peter Rose QC

That man was Bayley, Mr Rose told the court, and instead of taking her home, he drove to a small dark parking space near some apartments and “stopped between two fences”.

“She asked to get out … he said no,” Mr Rose told the jury.

“He said, ‘you can’t get out so you may as well have sex with me’.

“He then hit her to the side of the face … he covered her mouth to stop her yelling and held her throat. He told her she couldn’t get out and no-one would hear her.

“She was afraid she was going to be killed.”

Mr Rose said the young woman capitulated in fear for her life and encouraged Bayley to come back to her house, in the hope of escaping.

When he agreed and drove her home, she ran inside screaming and locked herself in the bathroom.

She told her housemates she thought she was going to die … she was crying hysterically.

Senior Prosecutor Peter Rose QC

The court heard Bayley took several steps inside the share house but fled when he realised other people were home.

The woman’s housemates called triple-0.

“She told her housemates she thought she was going to die … she was crying hysterically,” Mr Rose said.

Two months later, Bayley attacked Jill Meagher.

He was arrested five days later at his Coburg home, and led detectives to a shallow grave on a quiet road on Melbourne’s outer north-western fringe.

Bayley’s phone records, obtained during the investigation of Ms Meagher’s murder, showed that he was in St Kilda on the night of the backpacker’s rape.

Defence argued false identification of Adrian Bayley

There was huge media interest in the sentencing of Adrian Bayley in 2013. There was huge media interest in the sentencing of Adrian Bayley in 2013. (AAP: David Crosling)

The media blackout extended across all three County Court trials and jurors in all three of them were told nothing of the other cases pending against Bayley.

But such is Bayley’s notoriety in light of Ms Meagher’s rape and death, the court and lawyers took the extraordinary step of telling the pool of potential jurors at each trial exactly who he was in relation to that crime, right from the beginning.

“That is Adrian Bayley,” said defence lawyer Saul Holt, pointing across the courtroom during his opening statement in the third trial, just concluded.

That is Adrian Bayley … You know who he is.

Defence lawyer Saul Holt tells jurors as he points across the court

“You know who he is.”

Mr Holt said even if jurors had not been told of Bayley’s background, “you would probably have found out on your own anyway”.

“Please remember when you were empanelled, you were confident you could be impartial,” he told the jury.

“You took an oath to try this case only on the evidence. Please don’t fill in the gaps … distasteful as [the Jill Meagher case] is.”

Judge Sue Pullen also cautioned the jurors.

“It’s absolutely essential you put it out of your minds completely,” Judge Pullen said.

“It is essential not to look on the internet … or to investigate the background of Mr Bayley.

“We all have biases, we all have prejudices. I don’t expect everyone to lose them overnight but … you have to make a decision coldly, clinically.”

In all three trials, Mr Holt told jurors the defence did not dispute the victims were brutally raped, and that “something awful” happened to them.

But he told the juries, the victims had it wrong.

“In September 2012 he was arrested for the rape and murder of Jill Meagher and his details were everywhere … she [the victim] has identified things that she says were from him and that she’s got elsewhere,” Mr Holt said in the second trial of Bayley.

“Use your head, not your heart. Suspend your disbelief about the fact that I would defend him after all that you know about him.

“She [the victim] has jumped on the Adrian Bayley bandwagon.”

In returning three guilty findings, the jurors ultimately disagreed.

One of Victoria’s most violent criminals

The convictions add to a virtually unsurpassed record of violent sexual offending from a man in and out of prison and on the radar of authorities over many years, who was on parole when he attacked some of his victims, including Ms Meagher.

Adrian Ernest Bayley
 Adrian Bayley is escorted into the Supreme Court in Melbourne in 2013. (ABC TV)

That last fatal attack on Ms Meagher horrified the community, leading to an enormous outpouring of grief and anger, with mainstream and social media coverage of a volume never seen before.

The extent of Bayley’s offending was last revealed when he was sentenced by Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Nettle in June 2013 to life in prison, with a non-parole period of 35 years for the rape and murder of Ms Meagher.

“As your criminal record reveals, you are a recidivist violent sexual offender … in terms of moral culpability your killing of the deceased ranks among the worst kinds conceivable,” Justice Nettle told Bayley.

At the time, it emerged Bayley had been targeting, threatening and raping women his entire adult life.

His victims included his 16-year-old sister’s friend 25 years ago, a teenage hitchhiker and a series of St Kilda street workers in 16 rapes a decade later.

It was those crimes Bayley spent eight years in prison before his release on parole in 2010.

Adrian Bayley admitted raping and strangling Jill Meagher in a Melbourne laneway, but has pleaded not guilty to her murder.  The 41 year old will stand trial in the Victorian Supreme Court after the Deputy Chief Magistrate found there was enough evidence for a jury to convict him.  Bayley pleaded guilty to one count of rape in the Melbourne Magistrates Court yesterday and not guilty to murder and another two charges of rape.

UPDATE 5TH MAY 2013

Adrian Bayley arriving at court 5th May 2013

Adrian Bayley arriving at court 5th May 2013

ADRIAN Bayley has arrived at the Supreme Court for a hearing over the death of Melbourne woman Jill Meagher, where he is expected to plead guilty to charges of murder. More to come…

Bayley, 41, pleaded guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on March 12 to one count of raping Ms Meagher.

He pleaded not guilty to her murder and two of three counts of rape.

Bayley was set to stand trial over the murder in a Brunswick laneway in September – a year after the crime that shocked the nation.

Last moments of Jill Meagher’s life

  • by: Paul Anderson – From: Herald Sun
  • March 13, 2013 8:59AM

THE man accused of murdering Jill Meagher ran out of petrol after burying the Irish-born ABC employee in a shallow grave, according to court documents.

A police summary of the case against Adrian Bayley, tendered in court, was released to the media after Bayley’s committal hearing yesterday.According to the summary, on the night of September 21 last year, while Ms Meagher was out celebrating with friends in Brunswick, Bayley was arguing with his girlfriend at Swanston St’s Lounge Bar.

The pipeline layer, 41, was arguing with her about “jealousy and possessiveness”. His girlfriend left and returned to their home in Coburg.

“The accused (Bayley) attempted to contact his girlfriend by phone; however, she refused to answer or return text messages and phone calls,” the summary stated.

Bayley left the Lounge Bar at 12.25am and caught a taxi home. There, he changed into a blue hoodie jumper, the summary said.It was about 1am when Ms Meagher, 29, left the Brunswick Green Hotel with a friend and walked to the Etiquette Bar.

Her friend left soon after, twice offering Ms Meagher a ride in a taxi. But she declined, deciding to walk the short distance home.

On her way, outside Chemist Warehouse, she asked a group of three people for a cigarette and had a “short friendly conversation” with the trio.

She then continued on her way along Sydney Rd, towards Hope St. Bayley was in the area by that stage, and saw Ms Meagher walking alone.

“(Bayley) has run up from behind Ms Meagher before slowing to a walk as he approached her.” The Police summary said

Bayley would later tell police: “I was just walking ahead of her and we’d already interacted on Sydney Rd and that’s when she rang her brother. She was actually telling me about her father.”

Ms Meagher called her brother, Michael McKeon, at 1.35am to talk about their sick father.
Mr McKeon said he would call her back in a minute or two. He would try, but his sister’s phone would ring out several times.

Ms Meagher’s husband, Tom, knew his wife was out for drinks with workmates.

At 1.37am, he sent her a text message from their home: “Are you okay?”

The Chief Crown prosecutor, Gavin Silbert, SC, told the court it was 1.38am when Bayley “accosted” Ms Meagher and “proceeded to drag her into a laneway on Hope St between Oven St and Sydney Rd, where he has raped and strangled her”.A bin and parked car in a laneway off Hope St, Brunswick, where Jill Meagher's handbag was found

Bayley later told detectives: “I actually apologised. I can’t imagine how she felt but I know how I felt. All I thought was, ‘What have I done?’ ”

Mr Silbert told the court: “(Bayley) has left the body of the deceased in the laneway and returned to his home address, where he has collected a shovel and his white Holden Astra.”

At 1.47am, an extremely worried Tom Meagher sent his wife another text.

“Answer me, I’m really worried,” it read.

He sent another at 2.07am: “Please pick up.”

The court heard Bayley returned to the laneway at 4.22am and put Ms Meagher’s body into the boot of the car.

He drove to Blackhill Rd, Gisborne South, where he buried Ms Meagher by the side of the road.

“I cried, man, and I dug a hole . . . I didn’t cry for me,” Bayley told detectives.

Tom Meagher, meanwhile, had searched the Brunswick streets in vain.

Adrian Bayley as he was taken into custody in the back of a police car. Picture: Stephen Harman

“I kept trying to ring her but there was no answer,” he said in his police statement.

Bayley was driving home from Gisborne when his car ran out of petrol near the Calder Highway.

He managed to wave down motorist Dayle Watkins, who drove him to a nearby service station.

There, about 6am, he filled a jerry can with petrol.

Mr Watkins then drove Bayley back to his vehicle.

On September 27, after investigating the crime scene and gathering evidence, including CCTV footage and phone records, homicide detectives arrested Bayley.

“After investigators informed (Bayley) of the evidence implicating him, he made admissions,” the police summary stated.

“(Bayley) stated that it was due to the argument that he had had earlier in the night with his girlfriend, that (Bayley) had an angry and aggressive demeanour which he transferred onto the deceased.”

Yesterday, Bayley pleaded not guilty to one count of murder and two counts of rape.

He pleaded guilty to one charge of rape.

EDITED RECORD OF INTERVIEW WITH ADRIAN ERNEST BAYLEY TENDERED TO COURT 

Adrian Ernest Bayley

BAYLEY: You know what? I hope I never get out, because you know why I hope that, because then no one else ever has to be hurt because someone hurts me. I don’t deal with – with hurt very well. You know it wasn’t really my intention to hurt her, you know that? When we conversed, I swear to you man – I swear to I’d – I’d just – I spoke to her and she looked – she looked distraught. Does that make sense?

DETECTIVE:Yeah it does.

BAYLEY:She didn’t look happy.

DETECTIVE:Yeah it does.

BAYLEY:And I spoke to – I spoke to hear, you now and said, look, I’ll just – I’ll – I’ll help you, you know. That’s what I said to her and she was like fu… anyway it doesn’t matter. She flipped me off and that made me angry, because I was trying to do a nice thing. You know that?

DETECTIVE: Yeah yeah.

BAYLEY: She looked distraught.

BAYLEY:She looked distraught, you know. She looked like she was lost … always try to do the right thing some – you know, most of the time and I didn’t take well to her response, you know. I just don’t wanna go through it in detail. That – I can’t.

DETECTIVE: What happened to Jill?

BAYLEY:They should have the death penalty for people like me.

DETECTIVE:I can’t tell you what’s gonna happen.

BAYLEY:No well – that’s what I hope.

DETECTIVE:So you said she fobbed you off and you got angry. Tell me what happened then?

BAYLEY:Oh I just got pissed off and I actually walked off and she followed. I actually walked in front of her and she followed.

DETECTIVE:Yep.

BAYLEY:And it just got worse.

DETECTIVE:Tell me what happened.

BAYLEY:(Starts to cry) … like a big sissy man.

BAYLEY:I wanna do the right thing. It’s not fair on any of this to – it’s not fair of any of this stuff to have happened, let alone her family and stuff too.

DETECTIVE: Yeah.

BAYLEY:Not knowing.

DETECTIVE:Would you be willing to come with me and show me?

BAYLEY:I’ll try. I’ll do my best man.

DETECTIVE:I appreciate that.

BAYLEY:I’m not sure how to get there.

BAYLEY:I know what I’m saying to you. It’s not fair for this to have happened, and it’s not fair on her family and its not fair on them not knowing. It’s not fair.

DETECTIVE:Um. I understand why you don’t want to go into the detail. I understand that totally. Um how – how did she die?

BAYLEY: (Starts to cry). I strangled her.

DETECTIVE:Sorry?

BAYLEY: (Continues to cry). What have I done? What have I done man?

DETECTIVE:And where did that happen?

BAYLEY:On Hope Street.

DETECTIVE:How did she come to get in the laneway?

BAYLEY:we – we walked past it.

DETECTIVE:yeah

BAYLEY:That far down Hope St. I didn’t take her from the street, or – you know?

DETECTIVE: Yeah and then?

BAYLEY:And we were just talking you know? We weren’t – there was no argument, there was no – it was just talking. And then um …

DETECTIVE:Alright.

BAYLEY:I was just walking ahead of her and we’d already interacted on Sydney Rd, and that’s when she rang her brother. She was actually telling me about her father.

DETECTIVE:Right

BAYLEY:You know? And I was just – I was trying to be nice and – she kept going from being nice to nasty, to nice, to – you know what I mean?

DETECTIVE:Yep.

BAYLEY:And it just sort of ended up in the alley. I cant remember yeah, you know what I mean, 100 per cent, like how it ended up. We were just sort of – we were standing there.

DETECTIVE: Um how did you – how did you strangle her?

BAYLEY:With my hands.

DETECTIVE:With your hands. And once that had happened, what did you do?

(interview interrupted by knock at door, then resumes)

BAYLEY:I didn’t run.

DETECTIVE:You didn’t run?

BAYLEY:(starts to cry) That’s not it man. I actually apologised.

DETECTIVE:To her?

BAYLEY:But I didn’t run. I didn’t – didn’t know what to do. It’s a horrible feeling man.

DETECTIVE: Yeah.

BAYLEY:I can’t imagine how – how she felt, but I know how I felt. It’s not nice man, its not nice. And all I thought was what have I done? That’s all I thought. That was the thought in my head, what have I done after I said sorry. I didn’t know what else to say, man. I don’t know what else to say.

DETECTIVE:And what happened to her belongings?

BAYLEY:The phone I smashed. Just the other stuff I threw.

DETECTIVE:You walk to the side, you get the shovel. Tell me what you do.

BAYLEY:I cried man, and I dug a hole.

DETECTIVE:Yeah

BAYLEY: I cried man, And I didn’t cry for me, you need to understand that. I didn’t cry for me, just like I’m not crying for me now.

Jill Meagher

TIMELINE

Saturday September 22, 2012

  • 1.30am: Jill Meagher leaves Bar Etiquette in Sydney Rd, Brunswick, in Melbourne’s inner-north to walk home. CCTV from the Dutchess Boutique captures both Ms Meagher and Adrian Bayley walking past.
  • 1.38am: Mr Bayley allegedly grabs Ms Meagher and drags her into a nearby laneway off Hope St.
  • 1.40am – 1.45am: Neighbours hear a woman yelling from laneway. After a few minutes the yelling stops.
  • 2am: Tom Meagher tries calling his wife’s mobile phone.
  • 4am: Mr Meagher leaves his home in Lux Way – not far from the scene – to go and look for his wife.
  • 4.22am: It is alleged that having gone home to Coburg in Melbourne’s northern suburbs for a shovel, Mr Bayley returns in his white Holden Astra.
  • 4.26am: Car allegedly drives off with Ms Meagher’s body in the boot.
  • 6am: After continuing to call his wife’s phone all night without luck, Mr Meagher reports her missing.

Sunday September 23

  • 12.30pm: A Facebook page is set up in the hope somebody saw Ms Meagher.
  • 3.15pm: Police release public call for information about Ms Meagher’s disappearance.

Monday September 24

  • 6.30am: Ms Meagher’s handbag found in lane off Hope St. Police believe it was planted the day before.
  • 8.50am: Homicide squad takes over the case.
  • 1.45pm: Forensic officers recover evidence from the lane way. Detectives interview Mr Meagher.

Tuesday September 25

  • 12.30pm: Forensic police search the Meagher home and take away their car and bags of items for testing.
  • 3.55pm: Police release footage from the Dutchess Boutique of Ms Meagher and a man in a blue hoodie.
  • 6.15pm: Police return to the Meagher home and search again.

Thursday September 27

  • 2.30pm: Mr Bayley arrested in Coburg.
  • 3.58pm: Police interview with Mr Bayley begins.
  • 10pm: Interview suspended while police travel to a site allegedly nominated by Mr Bayley.

Friday September 28

  • 3am: Mr Bayley remanded at an out-of-sessions hearing after being charged with murder.
  • 4am: Ms Meagher’s body is taken away by coronial staff after being recovered from a shallow grave at the side of Black Hill Rd in Gisborne South, north of Melbourne.

Adrian Bayley ALLEGEDLY Raped and Murdered Jill Meagher

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1,978

The original thread to this sad case can be found here

I just watched footage of saddened ladies laying down bunches of flowers and something struck me out of the blue.

For a bunch of flowers ladies go out and buy one of those personal alarms. No need to wear it inside, or at home or with friends, but for those walks to a car, a taxi, a bus, or short walk home it could save your life.

Once activated they emit an ear piercing siren that cannot be turned off. It would bring attention instantly to your predicament and most likely scare off any would be attacker/abductor.

If you only ever use it once it may save your life girls, think about it.

Here is an example, for 9 dollars I I just googled personal alarm for this example

Product Description
Descriptions:
Protect yourself against intruders/attackers
This Personal Alarm suitable for joggers, elderly, disabled, night shift workers and some people who live alone
120dB high volume alarm will scare away the attackers and remind the others as SOS
Just pull off the hand strap to activate alarm, insert the hand strap to the plug to stop the alarm
The LED Spotlight is useful in the dark place
Key chain design allows you can take it with you to anywhere
Powered by 4 LR44 button cells(pre-loaded)
Dimensions: 73x45x15mm
Weight : 50g
Notice:
The alarm sound is very loud, never put the unit close to your ears

A fantastic article by veteran crime journo John Silvester, gives us a real insight behind the scenes as to how they caught the “Alleged” rapist and murderer, including the early speculation about why Jill’s husband was checked out as a suspect in a case like this.

Police suspected Jill Meagher’s killer might strike again and acted quickly, writes John Silvester.

At first it was just a missing person’s case. A person who had a little too much to drink had not made it home – an event that happens every night across Australia

By Saturday afternoon Homicide Crew Four, the suspicious missing persons unit under Detective Sergeant Dave Butler, began to monitor the situation. Soon it became obvious this was not a matter of a night spent on someone’s couch.

Jill Meagher’s phone had gone dead and she had not attempted to access her bank accounts, which discounted thoughts she had engineered her own disappearance.

Public grief over Jill Meagher

So by late Sunday, more than 36 hours after she was last seen drinking with her ABC work colleagues in Brunswick, an inner-city Melbourne suburb, Crew Four moved in.

But, at least initially, this was not a normal murder probe, as police were not sure there had been a murder at all.

While the investigation had to remain measured, there was an unspoken urgency. What if Jill had been abducted and was still alive?

When homicide detectives arrived in Brunswick on Monday morning detectives did not even have a crime scene.

What they did have was a starting point. They knew she had left Bar Etiquette to walk to her home in Lux Way. They knew she had refused an offer from a colleague to accompany her for safety.

Eventually her handbag was recovered in Hope Street but police were convinced it was not there when they checked the area on Saturday afternoon. This meant it had been planted some time later.

This would have initially indicated the offender might have lived nearby. (The reality was a local found the handbag in the lane on Saturday morning then returned on Sunday evening to put it back as a result of the media publicity.)

The first step for police was to confirm she had not made her destination, which meant interviewing her husband, Tom.

He was told firmly, but politely, that the homicide squad begins with those closest to the victim and then work its way out in ever increasing circles.

The reality is that in the majority of murders the victim knows the offender, and in most cases involving females they are killed by their partners.

Meagher had fallen asleep in front of the television late on Friday night and missed a text from his wife saying, ”Meet me at the pub.”

Police were able to corroborate much of his story, which effectively removed him from the suspect list by Tuesday. He was as he appeared. An undeniably decent man subjected to grief beyond imagination

Detectives began to trawl through her personal life to determine whether she had a boyfriend, was under work pressure, or suffered depression or a medical condition that could explain her disappearance.

When these were discounted the strongest theory became the most ominous. That she had been abducted off the street. That someone seeing a pretty, isolated and vulnerable woman simply bundled her off into the night.

And in the void came the theories. The husband had not reacted as he should. Why had she made the last call to her family in Perth and not to Tom? Why had he said she had not gone out with her handbag when she had?

This reflected not so much on Meagher as our need to come up with acceptable alternatives to the awful possibility she was the victim of an opportunistic abduction.

On Wednesday morning the homicide detectives had to make some tough decisions. They had sourced some CCTV footage from a Sydney Road boutique, which showed Jill outside the shop at 1.43am – her last known sighting just 450 metres from home. It also showed a man in a blue hoodie talking to her.

From the moment the detectives saw these images he became their number one suspect.

There was some debate over whether to make to the footage public. Police knew that he would surely be identified once it was released, but if Jill was still alive the consequences would be disastrous.

The truth was police had concluded she was dead. There was further debate over whether releasing the vision could lead the blue hoodie man to destroy evidence, fabricate an alibi, flee or self harm.

Perhaps in a regular homicide investigation police would have waited another 48 hours before releasing the film. But this was anything but normal and they decided to call for a public appeal to find this man. They feared they were hunting a predator who could strike again.

The response from the public was overwhelming, with 550 calls made to Crime Stoppers. Disturbingly many of the calls reported similar abduction attempts in the area that were not initially been reported to police. This is now the subject of a separate police investigation.

The suspect was ultimately identified internally by the homicide squad and by late Wednesday they had a name: Adrian Ernest Bayley, 41, of Coburg.

The surveillance squad, known as ”The Dogs”, was called in to watch him for two reasons – to check if he acted suspiciously and to ensure he could not strike again.

By Thursday morning he was confirmed as the man in the blue hoodie.

Surveillance police observed him behave as if an average guy from the suburbs, heading to work and following his normal routine. But his past showed another side. He was, as they say, ”known to police”. He had a history that fitted the likely profile and the CCTV vision showed him talking to the victim just before she disappeared.

As he was followed on Thursday morning by The Dogs, Crew Four started to rehearse the interview they would conduct with him later that day. They spoke to police who had previously dealt with him and carefully prepared a strategy designed for his personality.

The interview room was arranged to be non-threatening. Gone was the desk, the notebooks and the straight questions of a formal record of interview.

This was to be a friendly conversation rather than the third degree.

On Thursday afternoon Bayley was apprehended and taken to the St Kilda Road homicide office.

At first he was friendly but insistent. He was not in Sydney Road early Saturday morning, had not spoken to the victim and was not the man on the CCTV footage.

After some hours police played their ace. They showed him evidence that he was the man.

Police will allege that he eventually told them the story, admitting he grabbed Jill Meagher and took her to a side street where he sexually assaulted her.

They will produce the videoed confession in which he says he drove to Gisborne, a town 55 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, and used his own shovel to dig a shallow grave to hide his victim.

After initially denying any involvement he finally took police to the site where the body was recovered.

Yesterday he appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court charged with rape and murder.

It took six days to catch him. It took six minutes to remand him.

UPDATE 1pm 28/09/12: THE man charged over the disappearance of ABC employee Jill Meagher sat with head bowed in court this afternoon, charged with rape and murder.

Adrian Ernest Bayley, 41, of Coburg, sat in the dock of courtroom one at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court only metres from Ms Meagher’s husband Tom and her brother Michael – both men sitting in the first row in the courtroom flanked by homicide squad detectives.

Nine hours earlier, detectives had uncovered Ms Meagher’s body in a shallow grave beside a dirt track in Gisborne South.

Mr Bayley had appeared at an out of sessions court hearing about 2.30am, charged with rape and murder in Brunswick on September 22.

In court today, Tom and Michael did not look across at Mr Bayley throughout the short hearing.

Before the filing hearing started, Deputy Chief Magistrate Jelena Popovic greeted Ms Meagher’s relatives and told them the matter would take only a couple of minutes.

Mr Bayley sat in jeans and a blue T-shirt, a tattoo prominent on his muscled arm.

His face appeared flushed.

His legal aid defence lawyer told Ms Popovic there were no custody management issues.

In a meek-sounding voice, Mr Bayley replied “Yes” when Ms Popovic asked him if he understood that she could not entertain a bail application due to the murder charge.

Tom Meagher shot a gaze at Mr Bayley as guards led him from the court, and then whispered something to Ms Meagher’s brother.

Mr Bayley will re-appear in court on January 18 next year.

This thread is for discussion for after the arrest and beyond. This bloke is one dirty dog with plenty of form, including sexual violence! See below

IN the early hours of this morning, homicide detectives were led to a dark field on the edge of Melbourne, to the body of Jill Meagher.

Police will allege Bayley raped and murdered Ms Meagher on the morning of September 22 in Brunswick.

Shortly afterwards, 41-year-old Adrian Bayley was charged with the rape and murder of the popular ABC Radio manager, who disappeared six days ago after spending an evening out with friends and work colleagues.

Mr Bayley did not enter a plea in the brief out of sessions court hearing, speaking only to say he understood the charges. He was wearing a navy blue shirt and jeans.

He is alleged to be the man in the blue hoodie police had been searching for since the broadcast of CCTV footage taken from within a bridal shop on a busy road in the north Melbourne suburb of Brunswick which showed Ms Meagher being beckoned to by an unidentified man.

Of all the possibilities that confronted police when Ms Meagher first went missing early last Saturday morning, this was the least likely; a genuinely random, opportunistic attack.

Police believe Mr Bayley did not know Ms Meagher, a petite, vivacious 29-year-old Irish woman who had been living and working in Melbourne for several years.

Ms Meagher’s family, including her distraught husband Tom Meagher, were told of the tragic developments in the homicide and missing persons investigation yesterday afternoon.

When Mr Bayley was arrested in Coburg and brought to the homicide squad’s St Kilda Road police headquarters, he at first refused to answer questions. Eventually, after several hours in custody, he helped police locate her body.

Ms Meagher’s death will shock her family: her parents George and Edith McKeon, who live in Perth; her brother Michael, who arrived from Ireland in the days of uncertainty since she was last in the company of friends in Bar Etiquette, a regular haunt in her Brunswick neighbourhood.

The apartment she shared with her husband was just a five minute walk around the corner from the bar. Despite the offer from a friend to walk her home, she insisted on making the short trip alone.

The news will also devastate the tight-knit ABC Radio community at the broadcaster’s Southbank studios, where Ms Meagher had worked since January.

In a job where broadcasters and producers and journalists and technicians work around the clock in shifts, Ms Meagher was a constant presence throughout the day.

She did the rosters, made the travel arrangements, solved problems. If anyone needed something done, they went to Ms Meagher. At other times she sat at her desk on the other side of a glass partition from one of the broadcasting booths, sharing in off-air jokes.

In the days after she went missing, broadcasters and others struggled to do their jobs. That was when they hoped she was still alive.

The emergence of CCTV footage showing Ms Meagher walking along Sydney Road in Brunswick at about 1:40am last Saturday appears to have been crucial to solving the case. Prior to then, investigating police were uncertain whether Ms Meagher had attempted the walk home, or whether she had left the bar in other circumstances.

The discovery of her handbag in a nearby laneway a day after police had combed the area perplexed detectives, who believed they would not have missed such an obvious clue. They suspected it may have been planted, but did not know by who.

The field where Ms Meagher was found lay off a dirt track near Gisborne South, a country town fast being absorbed by Melbourne’s suburban spread north west of the city. As daylight broke this morning, police were continuing to scour the crime scene.

Mr Bayley was remanded in custody to appear before the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court this morning.

HERE is everything we know about the disappearance of Jill Meagher:

Saturday 1.39am – A man in a blue hoodie is seen walking in front of Sydney Rd shop Duchess Boutique between 1:39 and 1:43am

1.43am – After leaving Bar Etiquette around 1.30am, the 29 year-old is last seen on CCTV speaking with a man wearing a blue hoodie. The footage captures her looking unsteady on her feet and checking her phone. Minutes later, Ms Meagher’s brother Michael McKeon calls his sister several times, with no response.

2am – Ms Meagher’s husband Tom Meagher tries calling his wife’s mobile phone “non-stop” between 2am to 6am after she fails to return home.

4am – Mr Meagher heads out from their home on Lux Way to search for his wife. He contacts police after failing to locate her.

Saturday morning – Police commence the search to find the ABC worker.

Sunday – Police continue to search for the Brunswick woman. Posters are placed on Sydney Rd appealing for information.

12.30pm – A Facebook page is set up, urging the public to come forward with clues.

3.15pm – Police release a statement appealing for anyone who knows of Ms Meagher’s whereabouts to contact Crime Stoppers.

Monday 6.30am – Police find Ms Meagher’s handbag in a lane off Hope St, Brunswick. Police say they had previously searched the area and suspect the bag may have been “planted” after Sunday afternoon. There are no obvious signs of a struggle and her bag still contains her credit card. Ms Meagher’s phone remains missing.

8.50am –Homicide squad takes over the case.

1.45pm – Forensic experts emerge from the alley way with two brown paper bags.

Monday 1pm – Mr Meagher is questioned by police as routine.

Monday afternoon – A Sydney Rd shopkeeper’s security camera captures one man – possibly two – walking behind Ms Meagher. The shopkeeper also notices a car at the scene. The footage prompts police to seek other store footage. Police confirm Ms Meagher’s phone and bank card had not been used since Saturday.

Tuesday 12.30pm – Police search Meagher’s home and take away the Meaghers’ car for analysis. They spend a total of five hours searching the apartment and leave with six bags filled with personal items. The apartment is so full with forensic specialists, Mr Meagher and his brother-in-law Michael sit outside on the balcony for more than two hours.

3.55pm – Police release a statement and footage of the 29-year-old Irish national walking north along Sydney Rd. Police release several minutes of footage in which a man in a blue hoodie can be seen walking in front of Duchess Boutique.

6.15pm – Police return to the Meaghers’ apartment for a further search. They go back to the squad car to collect more evidence bags.

8.20pm – Police leave the Meaghers’ apartment with more paper bags.

Wednesday 11.43am – Police release another statement urging other people in the CCTV footage to come forward to give details of what they may have seen on the night of Ms Meagher’s disappearance. Prompted by the footage, women emerge with their own stories of attacks on Sydney Rd. The Find Jill Meagher Facebook page attracts more than 67, 000 likes and an outpouring of tributes. A witness claims to have seen the man wearing a hoodie running after Ms Meagher on Sydney Rd.

Thursday morning – Six days since Ms Meagher was last seen. One of six people seen on the CCTV footage released comes forward. Daniel Gregson says he did not see the man in the hoodie or Ms Meagher on the night she disappeared.

2.30pm – Police arrest a man at his Coburg home in relation to the disappearance of Ms Meagher. He is taken to St Kida Rd police complex to be interviewed.

3:15pm – Social media platforms are ablaze with news of the development, and tweets mentioning Ms Meagher’s name hit almost 12 million Twitter news feeds. Hundreds flood to the Help Find Jill Meagher Facebook page to post their thoughts.

10pm – Police whisk away the man, Adrian Ernest Bayley, from St Kilda Rd police complex. He leads them to Ms Meagher’s body.

1:45am – Police charge the 41 year-old man with the alleged rape and murder of Ms Meagher after discovering her body. They allege he is the man seen on CCTV footage wearing a blue hoodie and talking to Ms Meagher in the early hours of Saturday morning on Sydney Rd.

Friday 3am – Bayley is remanded in an out-of-sessions court hearing that lasts only 90 seconds at St Kilda Rd police station. The bail justice tells the accused he should not receive bail given the seriousness of the charges.

4am – After discovering Ms Meagher’s body in a shallow grave on Black Hill Rd at Gisborne South, Coroner’s Office staff put the body into a white van. Police complete a five-hour investigation at the scene.

11am – Ms Meagher’s husband and brother arrive at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court for the filing hearing of the accused.

Thug, 40, jailed for drunken king-hit

Karen Matthews   |  February 28th, 2012

A 40-YEAR-OLD thug, still on parole, claimed he was too drunk to remember king-hitting a Geelong man, breaking his jaw and rendering him unconcious, a court has heard.

Adrian Bayley, of Burgundy Dve, Wyndhamvale, pleaded guilty in Geelong Magistrates’ Court yesterday to a single charge of recklessly causing serious injury.

Police Prosecutor Leading Senior Constable David Vanderpol said that, about 1.24am on August 12, last year, the 20-year-old victim was standing outside a cafe in Little Malop St having something to eat when Bayley approached.

“Bayley started yelling and abusing the victim, then punched him with a closed fist to the face,” Sen-Constable Vanderpol said.

“The power of the blow lifted the victim off the ground and knocked him unconcious to the ground, striking his head as he fell.”

The prosecutor said Bayley then ran off and the victim was taken to Geelong Hospital with a fractured jaw.

Sen-Constable Vanderpol said the entire incident was captured on CCTV footage and there was also footage which showed Bayley earlier at the Eureka Hotel.

He said police later arrested Bayley who claimed he was too drunk to remember but recalled being involved in some sort of altercation.

Michael Brugman, for Bayley, said his client was distraught that he had harmed someone else.

“He has been losing sleep wondering how or why and trying to remember,” Mr Brugman said.

The lawyer said his client had spent most of his life in jail and was currently on parole until March 17, 2013.

“He stopped drinking on Boxing Day, is due to start a new job today and has no priors for violence,” Mr Brugman said.

But Magistrate Ron Saines rejected Mr Brugman’s claim that his client had no priors for violence.

“I have no alternative but to order an immediate custodial sentence,” Mr Saines told Bayley.

“Your past history involves sexual violence and you have been jailed for other serious matters.”

Bayley was convicted and sentenced to three months jail.

He was also excluded from entering Geelong’s CBD for 12 months.

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