The man who fatally stabbed Irish jeweller Dermot O’Toole during a botched robbery in Melbourne when he was on parole has been sentenced to 27 years in jail.
Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth said Gavin Perry had a long criminal history when he attacked and killed Mr O'Toole.
Justice Hollingworth said the fact that Perry had been on parole for previous armed robberies at the time was an aggravating feature of his offending.
Mr O’Toole (64) was killed during a botched robbery at his Hastings jewellery shop.
The judge said that Mr O’Toole’s wife, Bridget (64) had had to watch her husband of 41 years die in front of her after he came to her defence.
Justice Hollingworth said Perry was high on the drug ice when he caused Mr O’Toole’s “senseless” death, but this was no excuse.
Perry (27) who had pleaded guilty to charges of murder, armed robbery and intentionally causing injury, was jailed for 27 years with a non-parole period of 23 years.
Perry had entered the Jewel Shed in High Street, Hastings, about 5pm on July 12th, 2013, armed with a 20-centimetre carving knife that he had stolen minutes earlier.
Mr O’Toole, a former champion Irish dancer, was stabbed twice in the upper chest while trying to protect his wife. He died at the store despite efforts to revive him.
Mrs O’Toole, who was also stabbed multiple times, told how she was tormented by the fact that if Perry had not been released on parole her husband would still be alive.
She told the judge in her victim impact statement how she would be forever haunted by her husband’s last words: “Call an ambulance. I’ve been stabbed.”
Perry had been jailed in 2009 for six years with a non-parole period of four years for a series of armed robberies. He was released on parole in February last year and killed Mr O’Toole five months later.
In her statement, Justice Hollingworth said: “Even accepting that, prior to entering the store, you had not formed an actual intention to use the knife to harm anybody, you clearly intended to use it to threaten or frighten whichever staff were in the store at the time.
“And as soon as you encountered the slightest resistance from the O’Tooles, you swiftly resorted to using the knife against them both.
“Although the events in the Jewel Shed lasted for only about 30 seconds, in that short space of time you stabbed Mr O’Toole twice, stabbed at Mrs O’Toole multiple times, pushed them both around . . . the CCTV footage shows you acting in a fast and frenzied manner entirely consistent with somebody on ice.”
The judge told Perry, who had more than 200 criminal convictions, that “the O’Tooles were both in their 60s and clearly no physical match for you”.
“At the time you stabbed Mr O’Toole he was lying on his back in a vulnerable position. You were standing between him and the door and, at that stage, you could have left the store.
“Instead, you moved around his legs and body, moving further into the store in order to reach over and stab him.
“The fatal stab involved you thrusting the knife into Mr O’Toole’s chest to the full depth of the blade. You fled the store without checking to see how he was.”
Outside court, Mr O’Toole’s wife and three sons said the parole board had failed their family as it had many other families in Victoria.
An emotional Mrs O’Toole said that if Perry had killed the family member of someone in government or the judiciary, the laws surrounding parole would have been tightened overnight.
“I’ve had enough,” Mrs O’Toole said.
Trent O’Toole said the family was devastated by the 27-year jail term handed to Perry.
“When he’s released on parole we just hope that whatever the parole system is in the future they think more of the community and it doesn’t fail us ...” Mr O’Toole said.
Dale O’Toole said Perry’s past criminal history showed that he could not be rehabilitated and, when released, he would be aged in his 50s and would still be “a huge risk to society”.
Christian O’Toole said the 27-year jail term was nothing compared to the sentence the family had to live with and they were lucky Perry had not killed their mother as well.