EVEN Adrian Bayley himself told police he should never have been let out of jail.
After spending a decade behind bars, the serial sex offender had been out on parole for two years when he raped and strangled Melbourne woman Jill Meagher.
“They should never have let me out,” Bayley told police after confessing to killing Ms Meagher.
“How many chances does a person need?”
The 41-year-old Coburg man was on parole after serving eight years for raping five women – his second prison stint for rape – when he dragged Ms Meagher into a dark Brunswick laneway, then raped and murdered her on September 22 last year.
Bayley admitted lying in a sexual rehabilitation program to get parole the first time he was jailed for rape in the early 1990s, his plea hearing in the Victorian Supreme Court heard on Tuesday.
“I basically went through the motions and told them what they wanted to hear,” he said.
Calling for him to be jailed for life, Crown Prosecutor Gavin Silbert SC said Bayley’s history of rape began at 18.
At the time of Ms Meagher’s murder, Bayley had been on parole and bail, after appealing a three-month sentence for recklessly causing serious injury.
Mr Silbert said Bayley murdered Ms Meagher to silence her, knowing he would face a lengthy jail term if he was again convicted of rape.
Psychologist Professor James Ogloff said Bayley admitted he was “trying to think of a way to get out of things”, even after confessing to strangling Ms Meagher.
He said Bayley, who he diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, was a violent sexual predator who fantasised about assuming a position of power and control over his victims, who he typically blamed for his crimes.
He agreed Bayley was a calculating and manipulative man who derived pleasure in inflicting pain on his victims.
The court heard Bayley had told one of his rape victims: “Now you’ll do what I want you to do, if you fight, I’ll fight you back” and “I could dump you in the f***ing alley and no one would give a s***”.
Bayley’s lawyer Saul Holt SC said his client had expressed genuine remorse and true self-loathing, attempting suicide in custody.
He said Bayley had not intended to murder Ms Meagher, strangling her after she became aggressive.
“She resisted and fought back after the rape and she indicated that she would call police,” Mr Holt said.
“When someone lays hands on him … he responds with this level of rage.”
In a letter read to the court, Bayley said he was truly sorry.
“I destroyed a precious life,” he said.
Mr Holt said the Crown’s call for a life sentence without parole was inappropriate because the case was not “on that level of severity”.
“My submission is this is not offending that, even taken in combination with Mr Bayley’s prior convictions … should mean that the key gets thrown away forever,” he said.
But Mr Silbert urged Justice Geoffrey Nettle to make no finding of remorse.
“He denied until he was trapped into a confession,” he said.
Ms Meagher’s husband Tom told the court his faith in mankind had been destroyed.
“I think of the waste of a brilliant mind and a beautiful soul at the hands of a grotesque and soulless human being,” he said in his victim impact statement read to the court.
“I am half a person because of this crime.”
In June 1991, Bayley was jailed for five years on six charges including rape and attempted rape against three victims and was out on parole by February 1993, the court heard.
In 2002, he was jailed for 11 years for the rape of another five women.
He was again granted parole and was back on the streets by March 2010, the court heard.
Bayley will be sentenced next Wednesday. – AAP
