I have posted this story not to be gruesome but to highlight the fact that the laws in this country will not suffice for this particular crime and many more of the ghastly offences committed throughout Australia. Ask yourself this , if it was your child, and unless you had a unique forgiving nature, 20-25 years jail just isn't enough. when sentenced to life, it should be life. I will attempt to follow up on this story if more news develops. And people wonder why there is a call to bring back the death penalty. Can't say I agree or disagree with the death penalty. Murder is murder even within the legal system but how can these types of activities be dealt with by a prison sentence where there is a possibility that the offenders could be released after serving a few years.
THE dismembered body of toddler Joedan Andrews was stuffed in a couch near a rubbish tip after dogs had been "getting at it", an inquest into the boy's death heard today.
The inquest at Wentworth Local Court has previously heard that two men chopped Joedan's head off with a knife used to kill chickens and buried it and the torso separately after he was killed in a car crash.
Witness Clinton Rose told the inquest the brother and father of the boy's stepfather Colin Moore told him they had seen Joedan's partial remains and hid them to stop the dogs devouring them.
Two-year-old Joedan's remains were found a month after he disappeared from the Aboriginal mission near the western NSW town of Dareton on December 15, 2002.
No charges have been laid.
Mr Rose told the inquest that on the Monday before New Year's Eve, 2002, he bumped into an upset John Moore at the mission, just across the Victorian border from Mildura.
"He wanted to tell me something,'' Mr Rose said.
Mr Rose claimed John Moore told him: "Me and my dad went for a walk one day towards the tip and we found the little fella's body''.
"We put him under the couch there ... the dogs were getting at it.''
Mr Rose said John Moore took him to see the bone-coloured couch.
He said there was a decaying smell coming from it and he could see blood on the dirt around it.
A forensic expert earlier this week told the inquest he found a bone-coloured vinyl couch near the tip when investigating Joedan's death.
He said it was soaked in biological fluid and had a foul smell coming from it. He also found a child's clavicle bone nearby.
Joedan's mother, Sarah Andrews, originally told police the toddler was last seen asleep in his bed in their home at 16 Namatjira Avenue, where they lived with her then boyfriend Colin Moore.
Weeks later, cadaver dogs found some of Joedan's body parts scattered around the mission.
Forensic experts found the boy's blood in almost every room of the Namatjira Ave house.
Stephen Rushton, counsel assisting the coroner, told the inquest on Monday the 33-month-old boy was either killed in a drunken car accident or an abusive attack and then chopped into pieces and disposed of.
On Tuesday, a juvenile witness told the inquest he saw brothers Colin and John Moore going to the rubbish tip with something wrapped in a shower curtain days after Joedan disappeared.
He said he overheard the men saying: "We'll go over to the tip and move the little kid''.
Yesterday, the court heard that Mildura man Timothy Mitchell told his then girlfriend Kathleen Brown that he and Colin Moore chopped Joedan's head off and buried it and the torso separately after he was killed in a car crash.
Ms Brown said Mr Mitchell told her he and Colin Moore used a knife they had used to kill chickens.
Mr Mitchell said he confronted Colin Moore a number of times about what had happened to Joedan, because he thought he couldn't have just ``disappeared''.
The court heard he asked Mr Moore: "What did you do with the little fella?''
Mr Mitchell said Mr Moore "just got white and walked away''.
The inquest before NSW deputy state coroner Malcolm Macpherson continues.
Cairnsnews.com
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3 comments:
My take on this, would be as follows.
In my opinion- and it isn't everybodys, is that the penal system should aim to provide; recompense, rehabilitation, public protection.
So yes, if there's a chsnce they'll do it again, never let them out. Ever. Keep them in humane conditions, because they're too warped to get what they did, but never let them anywhere near the rest of us.
But by the same token, I know for a fact MOSt murderers weren't planning on killing five minutes before that actually happened, and I'm not sure what constructive purpose punishment serves.
I don't like the idea of punishment, it's pre-christian in it's ethos.
I think the real problem is highlighted with, say, a burglar getting the same time length sentenmce as a child abductor. You can rehabiltate the first, but not the second.
I'd be tempted to send the first on a compulsory course to adddress his bahaviour, couple with lngthy community service. I'd never let the second out of custody.
How do you feel about the death penalty, Nunyaa?
That isn't the topic of this post James,. but if it was one of my children, I'd want them strung up, or drawn and quartered. Yet I argue with myself as I do believe if you kill another be it illegally or pass a death sentence, it is still murder. And what is your views on it?
The problem is Crushed, its us tax payers who end up keeping these sickos alive, a first time offender, rehab is preferred but the rest, indefinite jail time.
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