ADRIAN BAYLEY IS to be sentenced for the rape and murder of 29-year-old Irish woman Jill Meagher at a court in Melbourne later tonight.
The 41-year-old man had initially pleaded not guilty but changed his plea to guilty in court. The maximum sentence he could receive would be life in jail without any possibility of parole, which the prosecution has argued for. However Bayley’s lawyers called on the judge not to impose the maximum penalty.
Bayley will be sentenced at 9.30am on Wednesday morning in the Victorian Supreme Court (12.30am Irish time).
At a pre-sentence hearing in the Victorian Supreme Court earlier this month it was found that Bayley had been out on parole when he raped and killed the 29-year-old. The court also heard that he has a long history of brutal attacks against women and is believed to have been responsible for 21 rapes before the attack on Meagher.
The Australian state carried out a root and branch review of its parole laws following the disclosure and says its parole laws are now the toughest in the country.
Jill Meagher’s body was discovered in a shallow grave in September last year, six days after she went missing following a night out with work colleagues. She was originally from Drogheda in Louth, and had been living in Melbourne with her husband Tom.
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