If you need more evidence the legal system has no regard for victims and their families, just look at the paltry sentences handed down to the males who murdered Vyleen White and Annette Brennan.
A teenager stabbed Vyleen to death at a Red Bank Plains shopping centre in Queensland in February of 2024. The 17-year-old was convicted on a murder charge and sentenced to a maximum 16 years – but he only has to serve 9.7 years.
Stephen Fleming murdered Annette Brennan in Coolaroo, Victoria, in June of 2024. After ending Annette’s life, he dumped her in a bin. Her body was found in the local waste management facility. He killed her and he deprived her of every dignity in her death. Annette was 67.
Fleming was convicted on a manslaughter charge and has just been sentenced to 10 years with a minimum of seven years. He was her housemate, meaning this is a domestic violence murder but the court did not even consider this an aggravating factor.
Australia’s femicide epidemic continues unabated – we have (at the time of writing) lost 166 women to violence since January 1 of 2024. Vyleen and Annette are just two of these women.
Daily, I walk alongside the families of femicide. Daily, we speak of how the legal system favors perpetrators and completely disregards victims. And then those in the same system scratch their heads and wonder why violence in Australia is so incredibly high and why we lose so many women, children and men to murder.
And as they scratch their heads, the defence lawyers, the public prosecutors and the judges plead cases down and impose inadequate sentences.
If we have any hope of ending violence against women, we need a system that holds killers to account. They must serve the maximum terms.
I look at Vyleen and Annette’s beautiful faces – faces lined with wisdom – and I think to myself, would the sentences be so lenient if they were younger?
VYLEEN WHITE & ANNETTE BRENNAN MATTER! ❤️
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