I lived in Brisbane at the time when the Bikeway rapist, Luke James Colless, was attacking women while they were exercising along bikeways and in parks. This happened between 2006 and 2008 to eleven women, five of whom were digitally penetrated.

I remember how Colless terrorised women, many of whom would not jog on their own while he was on the loose. The police had a hard time catching him and in fact he was caught by an alert citizen who saw his car speed away in a suspicious manner. We all breathed a sigh of relief when he was caught and sentenced to 25 years jail for his attacks. So what has the Court of Appeal done just now?

It has reduced the convicted rapist’s sentence by nine years. Why? Well, because the sentence was “manifestly excessive” according to his legal reps, even though he would be eligible for parole after 15 years. And why was the sentence excessive? Because it was only digital rape and not penile rape.

I will never come to terms with the way the law works in favour of criminals. Preying on women was apparently okay. Attacking women by grabbing them and assaulting them by digital penetration was okay too for the Court of Appeal judges because there were “mitigating features.”

Here is the list of mitigating features given by the Court of Appeal:-

Colless’ co-operation with authorities after his arrest;
- his plea of guilty and in doing so, saving the resources of the State and removing the prospect of victims having to give evidence at trial;
- his genuine remorse;
- without his confessions, convictions may not have been obtained for some of the charges;
- absence of any prior criminal history;
- his “promising prospects of rehabilitation”.

The man must be an angel. Why not make him Australia’s second saint? I’m sure we can dig up a couple of miracles in his past. Colless had genuine remorse. Now that makes all those eleven women feel heaps better, I’m sure.

Which brings me to an important point that I want to make. And it’s the overuse of the word “sorry” as if throwing that word around changes anything. Let’s face it, Colless’s defence team would have advised him to put on the mea culpa act.

Nowadays, a drunk driver can commit a hit and run, leave the victim for dead and turn up at a police station the next day with his lawyer and as long as there are masses of Kleenex tissues being bandied about, the driver will get a slap on the wrist. After all, he said he was sorry. Oh, isn’t that nice of him.

What does it take for a conviction to stick? Why do criminals get off with reduced sentences? Why does saying oops, I am sorry, have any place in the legal system at all? We should look at the impact of Colless’s crime and judge how it affected our society for three years and we should convict accordingly.

Eleven women were attacked brutally. Thousands of women in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast lived in fear because of this monster and now he will be let out early so that he can keep on attacking. And believe me, he will. And then when he’s caught again he’ll remember to cry crocodile tears. That should make it all better.

For those of you who are interested in the Court of Appeal’s full decision I am including the URL for it.

I have not changed my mind about the leniency of the sentence and do not agree with Justice Paul de Jersey’s defence of it.

Comments (11)

11 Comments »

1. Which one of the mitigating features would exist if the b—rd hadn’t been caught???

   Comment by Max — February 24, 2010 @ 4:40 pm

2. You would think that having a women on this panell of judges may have made a difference to them constantly mentioning that it was “only” digital rape. I couldn’t give a shit how he raped them he raped them. About him being sorry the only thing he is sorry for is loosing his family and his freedom. His wife wont even let his kids anywhere near him so he is sorry. On the onther hand he is not sorry about doing these thing he is not sorry he has hurt anyone weather that be these women their families or his own just that he on his own now. Stupid git should rot in hell and never be allowed near another human being again.

   Comment by out raged — February 24, 2010 @ 11:32 pm

3. Hullo again
   I’ve now read the full judgment in the
   R v Colless appeal (not just the bits that the press think we need to know) and have come to the conclusion that it’s not the bewigged ones who should be targets of our outrage–rather the bloody madcap mitigation provisions of the Penalties and Sentences Act by which they are constrained !! Cheers

   Comment by Max — February 26, 2010 @ 1:24 pm

4. Max,

   I took your advice and just read the entire judgment too. It horrified me that Colless is getting the soft treatment. As for the other cases mentioned in the appeal I would have given them longer sentences in the first place. I am usually a fan of Justice Paul de Jersey and in fact we had a court case before him which was in our favour, thank goodness.

   In this case, however, I don’t care whether Colless can be rehabilitated or not. He did use violence in his attacks. He did commit brutal crimes and he should serve his sentence. We lived in terror because of this scourge and now he somehow is portrayed as a man who’s truly sorry. I would have dedigitalised him forever as a result of his crimes. In all of the comparisons with previous rapes etc that I read about in the appeal, the victims were just objects to be weighed up and assessed as if they had not been violated at all. I am very disappointed in the decision and reading about it in gruesome detail did not mitigate anything for me.

   Comment by Lili — February 26, 2010 @ 3:35 pm

5. No! It mitagated nothing for me either–especially not my contempt for the P&S Act

   Comment by Max — February 26, 2010 @ 4:31 pm

6. Do you remember Agent 99 in that TV show “Get Smart”? She used to shake her head at Smart and say “Oh Max…”

   Nice to see you full of contempt. I can relate to that. lol

   Comment by Lili — February 26, 2010 @ 6:15 pm

7. OK, I’ll go quietly.
   But I’ve never owned a shoephone Your Honour.

   Comment by Max — February 27, 2010 @ 11:38 am

8. You win, Max. I’ll give you the last word…in the cone of silence.

   Comment by Lili — February 27, 2010 @ 2:59 pm

9. Well done for linking to the judgment, which puts a lie to the claim that the sentence reduction was because the rapes were digital: see [33].

   Rather, the reduction was largely because of Colless’s early guilty plea. Presumably, you wouldn’t want to ignore those, otherwise there’d be every incentive for rapists to plead not guilty and put complainants through cross-examination, in the off-chance that the case would collapse. So, an appeals court has to make sure that a guilty plea case gets substantially smaller sentence than an equivalent non-guilty plea case.

   The big problem with rape sentencing is that no-one likes to rank a rape as less serious than another one, but they still want recognition when a rape is especially bad. No-one would have had a problem if a rapist got a higher sentence because he raped anally or vaginally, used a knife, etc. But, if you’re OK with a higher sentence in those situations, then you must also be OK with a lower sentence in their absence, right?

   Comment by Jeremy — March 1, 2010 @ 3:42 pm

10. Digital rape cannot be treated in the full context of a rape as there is no intention of committing the full offense on the victim. It is a lessor crime. After all no victim would have had lost anything because of the offender’s action. This is a good lesson for women who show off their bodies in a provoking manner. They themselves drag poor men into committing crimes.

    Comment by rupasena — June 7, 2010 @ 3:26 pm

11. It is still an assault on a person’s body. Nobody has the right to do this to another person without permission How do you know what the intention of the attack was? Are you saying that if somebody did that to you or to your child it would be okay?

    Comment by Lili — June 7, 2010 @ 5:52 pm

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