Australia: Only three years for kiling a disabled cab-driver?

Two teenage girls jailed for killing a disabled Sydney taxi driver were "violent little animals" whose parents also deserved to be in prison, the victim's family said today. Youbert Hormozi, 53, died of a heart attack after he was bashed by the 14-year-old girls on January 31 last year. The cousins, who cannot be named, pleaded guilty to his manslaughter and were jailed today for up to six years. Mr Hormozi's former wife Anna and daughter Melina cried and shook with emotion after Supreme Court Justice Peter McClellan ordered the killers to serve a minimum three-and-a-half years. With time already served, the pair will be eligible for parole in August 2009. The state opposition has called for an appeal against what it called an "inadequate" sentence.

Outside court Mrs Hormozi asked how the sentences would deter others. "What sort of message is that going to send?" she asked. She compared the girls to "violent little animals", saying: "They should be caged." "My concern is that they shouldn't have been out there at two o'clock in the morning," Mrs Hormozi said. "Their parents should be right along there with them, serving their sentence with their kids."

The girls had been drinking heavily and smoking marijuana before they caught Mr Hormozi's cab in southwest Sydney. After refusing to pay the fare they punched and kicked the driver, whose left arm had been paralysed by a stroke. The pair fled in Mr Hormozi's stolen taxi and left the injured father of two in a Canley Heights street, where he died. Mr Hormozi had coronary disease and the attack was "sufficient to traumatise him and trigger the heart attack from which he died", Justice McClellan said.

Before they were arrested the next day, the girls boasted of what they had done. "I've been on the news," said one. "I killed someone and will kill again." The girls giggled and smiled during previous court proceedings – a sign of their immaturity, psychologists said, rather than a lack of remorse. Both came from violent families, with one saying: "If you do something wrong, you get smashed." The other was accustomed to "violence or aggression as a communication strategy", Justice McClellan said.

While the judge said "alcohol and drugs are not a licence for committing crime", the sentences took the girls' youth and impaired judgment into account. Now aged 15, the killers held hands in the dock after learning their fate.

Justice McClellan acknowledged that some in the community might consider the sentences inadequate, and the Hormozi family may feel that a much greater punishment should be imposed. "Every member of the community must be reminded of the vulnerability of other people to acts of violence," he said. But rehabilitation was important and the teenagers had been responding to the discipline and care they received in custody, the judge said. With time already served, the teenagers will be eligible for parole in August 2009.

Opposition justice spokesman Greg Smith said the sentence was inadequate and called on the Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal. "They acted very callously and had they been adults they would have attracted a very high sentence," he told reporters. "When young people act like adults, the court have said they should be punished like adults."

Report here



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