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TWO women who took part in the racist torture and murder of a 14-year-old Aboriginal boy have been Jailed for life after pleading guilty to the killing. In Western Australia's Supreme Court yesterday, Derrin Elizabeth Bardsley, 34, and Rebecca Tilaima Papalii, 42, both admitted helping to hogtie, beat and kill Cleon Jackman at a house in Langford, in Perth's southern suburbs, in May, 1999. The pair, along with the alleged main culprit of the killing, James Wayne Stapleton, were originally convicted of wilfully murdering the youngster following a trial in 2001. But the women successfully appealed against their convictions last year, and had been due to face a retrial until they pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of murder. Under WA law, wilful murder is categorised as murder with premeditation, and the lesser charge of murder, which has no element of premeditation, carries a lesser sentence. In sentencing Bardsley to a minimum of 12 and half years, and Papalii to a minimum of 12 years, Justice John McKechnie said the crime was "monstrous"- "The torture of a child is abhorrent, and no matter what frustrations you may have felt does not justify what you did," Justice McKechnie said. "There are some crimes that are so monstrous they overwhelm any matters of mitigation - this is one of them." The sentences were backdated to the date of the women's arrests in May, 1999, which means both could be released in 2011. Prosecutor Phil Urquhart described the murder as a racially- motivated, cowardly and gutless attack on the teenager, whom they believed had been responsible for break-ins at the house owned by Bardsley. But, he said, the court should refuse to label the killing as vigilantism. Adelaide Advertiser (20-7-2005) Tim Clarke |
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