Martin Leach (murderer)

Last updated

Martin Leach
Born (1959-01-11) 11 January 1959 (age 64)
New Zealand
Occupation(s)Mechanic
Cleaning company employee
Criminal statusImprisoned
SpouseGeraldine Leach
Children2
Criminal charge Rape
Murder x 2
Penalty3 x Life imprisonment without parole

Martin Leach (born 11 January 1959 in New Zealand), [1] is a convicted rapist and double murderer in Australia, and has been described as one of, if not the Northern Territory's worst, killer. [2]

Contents

Leach is the longest serving prisoner in the Northern Territory, and is currently imprisoned at the Darwin Correctional Centre, [1] serving three consecutive life sentences without parole for his crimes.

Early life

Leach met his wife when aged sixteen and they married in 1979. In 1978, Leach had been involved in a serious motor vehicle accident near Mataranka which left him seriously injured. [1]

Rape

In 1979, Leach raped a woman at knifepoint after breaking into her house. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment.

In June 1982, Leach was released from prison and resumed his relationship with his wife and held a job for some time with a cleaning company. He was made redundant in December 1982 and, apart from employment for a period of one week in March 1983, he remained unemployed. His wife was in full-time employment.

Double murder

On 20 June 1983, an eighteen-year-old local woman, Janice Carnegie, and her fifteen-year-old cousin, Charmaine Aviet, were swimming at a popular recreational waterhole at Berry Springs. Leach watched the pair for some time, before forcing them at knifepoint to accompany him to a nearby gully.

He stabbed Janice in the stomach when she attempted to reach for Leach's knife. Following the stabbing, he then raped her. He stabbed and killed Charmaine, then stabbed Janice in the neck; a pathologist testified it probably took her 5 to 10 minutes to die. Their naked bodies were later found bound and gagged in a shallow grave. [1]

Trials and appeals

On 10 May 1984, Leach was charged with two counts of murder and one count of rape by Northern Territory Police. Six days later he was convicted by a jury on all three counts, and Justice Muirhead sentenced him to imprisonment for life on each count, to run consecutively with each other and with a three-month sentence for assaulting a prison officer while on remand.

At the time he was sentenced for murdering the two girls, there was no power to fix a non-parole period for life sentences in the Northern Territory and the only possibility of release was executive clemency.

Legislation came into effect in 2004 providing for non-parole periods for life sentences for murder after that date; for an offender already serving life sentence(s), a section provided that the sentence be taken to include a 20-year non-parole period, or 25 years for those jailed for aggravated murder. [3] On that basis, Leach would have been eligible for parole in 2009. The legislation also included that the Director of Public Prosecutions (Northern Territory) could apply to the Supreme Court to extend or exclude the non-parole period. [4]

Less than a month after the law took effect, the Director of Public Prosecutions made an application to revoke Leach's non-parole period, and order that he spend the remainder of his life in jail. It was granted by Chief Justice Brian Martin, [1] and upheld in a majority decision by the NT Court of Criminal Appeal, who ruled that his culpability was so extreme that the community's interest could only be served if he was imprisoned for the term of his natural life without the possibility of release on parole; the dissenting judge, Justice Stephen Southwood, said that he would have fixed a non-parole period of 40 years, making Leach eligible for parole in 2024 at the age of 65. [5]

Leach appealed to the High Court, arguing that Chief Justice Martin had not shown he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Leach's culpability was so extreme as to require a life sentence without parole. The High Court found Justice Martin had applied the correct tests: Chief Justice Murray Gleeson remarked that "He considered each of the specific aspects of community interest ... and ultimately came to the conclusion that he should refuse to fix a non-parole period". Judges also described Leach's crimes as "horrific" and said he had shown no remorse. [6]

Leach will now die in jail, having officially exhausted all avenues of appeal.

Related Research Articles

The Sydney gang rapes were a series of gang rape attacks committed by a group of up to 14 youths led by Bilal Skaf against Australian women and teenage girls, as young as 14, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia across several days in 2000. The crimes, described as ethnically motivated hate crimes by officials and commentators, were covered extensively by the news media, and prompted the passing of new laws. In 2002, the nine men convicted of the gang rapes were sentenced to a total of more than 240 years in jail. According to court transcripts, Judge Michael Finnane described the rapes as events that "you hear about or read about only in the context of wartime atrocities".

Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for which, in some countries, a person could receive this sentence include murder, torture, terrorism, child abuse resulting in death, rape, espionage, treason, drug trafficking, drug possession, human trafficking, severe fraud and financial crimes, aggravated criminal damage, arson, kidnapping, burglary, and robbery, piracy, aircraft hijacking, and genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or any three felonies in case of three-strikes law. Life imprisonment can also be imposed, in certain countries, for traffic offences causing death. Life imprisonment is not used in all countries; Portugal was the first country to abolish life imprisonment, in 1884.

A thrill kill is premeditated or random murder that is motivated by the sheer excitement of the act. While there have been attempts to categorize multiple murders, such as identifying "thrill killing" as a type of "hedonistic mass killing", actual details of events frequently overlap category definitions making attempts at such distinctions problematic.

Mandatory sentencing requires that offenders serve a predefined term for certain crimes, commonly serious and violent offenses. Judges are bound by law; these sentences are produced through the legislature, not the judicial system. They are instituted to expedite the sentencing process and limit the possibility of irregularity of outcomes due to judicial discretion. Mandatory sentences are typically given to people who are convicted of certain serious and/or violent crimes, and require a prison sentence. Mandatory sentencing laws vary across nations; they are more prevalent in common law jurisdictions because civil law jurisdictions usually prescribe minimum and maximum sentences for every type of crime in explicit laws.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bradley John Murdoch</span> Australian murderer

Bradley John Murdoch is an Australian criminal serving life imprisonment for the July 2001 murder of English backpacker Peter Falconio in Australia. He will be 74 when eligible for parole in 2032. Murdoch is being held in Darwin Correctional Centre in Darwin, Northern Territory. He has lodged two appeals against his conviction, both of which were unsuccessful. The High Court of Australia refused special leave to appeal on 21 June 2007. He is forbidden to talk to the press.

This is a timeline of major crimes in Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crime in the Northern Territory</span>

Crime in the Northern Territory is managed by the Northern Territory Police, the territory government's Department of the Attorney-General and Justice and Territory Families.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Dupas</span> Australian serial killer and rapist

Peter Norris Dupas is an Australian convicted serial killer, currently serving three life sentences without parole for murder and primarily for being a serious habitual offender. He has a very significant criminal history involving serious sexual and violent offences, with his violent criminal history spanning more than three decades, and with every release from prison has been known to commit further crimes against women with increasing levels of violence. His criminal signature is to remove the breasts of his female victims.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David and Catherine Birnie</span> Australian couple convicted of four murders

David John Birnie and Catherine Margaret Birnie were an Australian couple from Perth, Western Australia, who murdered four women at their home in 1986, and attempted to murder a fifth. These crimes were referred to in the press as the Moorhouse murders, after the Birnies' address at 3 Moorhouse Street in Willagee, a suburb of Perth.

Michael Kanaan is an Australian triple murderer from Sydney, currently serving three sentences of life imprisonment plus 50 years and 4 months without the possibility of parole, for the murder of three people and other offences, all committed in Sydney between 17 July 1998 and 22 December 1998. In the drama series Underbelly: The Golden Mile, he was portrayed by actor Ryan Corr.

Naseam El-Zeyat is an Australian double murderer from Sydney, currently serving two sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the murder of two people in October 2003.

Ramzi Aouad is an Australian double murderer from Sydney, New South Wales, currently serving two sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the murder of two people in October 2003.

John Ernest Cribb was an Australian triple murderer from Sydney. At the time of his death, Cribb was serving three consecutive sentences of life imprisonment plus 45 years for the rape and murder of Valda Connell and the murder of her children, Sally and Damien, at Swansea, New South Wales, on 11 August 1978, in addition to numerous other offences.

Life imprisonment is the most severe criminal sentence available to the State and Territory Supreme Courts in Australia. Most cases attracting the sentence are murder. It is also imposed, albeit rarely, for sexual assault, manufacturing and trafficking commercial quantities of illicit drugs, and offences against the justice system and government security.

In Germany, life imprisonment has an indeterminate length and is the most severe punishment that can be imposed. A person sentenced to life imprisonment may normally apply for parole after having served 15 years. If the parole court rejects the application, the inmate may reapply after a court determined blocking period no longer than two years. If the court has determined a "severe gravity of guilt" exists, parole is delayed for a non-specific period beyond 15 years.

Child sexual abuse is a matter of concern in Australia, and is the subject of investigation and prosecution under the law, and of academic study into the prevalence, causes and social implications.

Kim Baumeler is an Australian barrister, based in Hobart, Tasmania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Life imprisonment in Singapore</span> Legal punishment in Singapore

Life imprisonment is a legal penalty in Singapore. This sentence is applicable for more than forty offences under Singapore law, such as culpable homicide not amounting to murder, attempted murder, kidnapping by ransom, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, voluntarily causing grievous hurt with dangerous weapons, and trafficking of firearms, in addition to caning or a fine for certain offences that warrant life imprisonment.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 The Queen v Leach [2004] NTSC 60 (12 November 2004), Supreme Court (NT,Australia).
  2. ↑ "Killer to die in jail, court rules". The Australian . Australian Associated Press. 6 February 2007. Retrieved 19 April 2009.
  3. ↑ Sentencing (Crime of Murder) Parole Reform Act 2003 (NT) s 18 Sentence includes non-parole period.
  4. ↑ Sentencing (Crime of Murder) Parole Reform Act 2003 (NT) s 19 Application to extend or exclude non-parole period.
  5. ↑ Leach v R [2005] NTCCA 18 (22 December 2005), Court of Criminal Appeal (NT,Australia).
  6. ↑ Leach v R [2007] HCA 3 , (2007) 230 CLR 1(6 February 2007), High Court (Australia).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.