Regina v Bruce Allan Burrell [2006] NSWSC 581

New South Wales Supreme Court

CITATION : Regina v Bruce Allan Burrell [2006] NSWSC 581 This decision has been amended. Please see the end of the judgment for a list of the amendments.

HEARING DATE(S) : 16 March 2006 - 6 June 2006, 23 June 2006,

JUDGMENT DATE : 9 August 2006

JUDGMENT OF : Barr J at 1

DECISION : For the murder of Kerry Patricia Whelan the offender is sentenced to imprisonment for life. Sentence will be taken to have commenced on 23 December 2005. For the detention of Mrs Whelan with intent to hold her for advantage the offender is sentenced to imprisonment for sixteen years, commencing on 23 December 2005 and expiring on 22 December 2021 with a non-parole period of twelve years expiring on 22 December 2017.

PARTIES : Regina, Bruce Allan Burrell

FILE NUMBER(S) : SC 2002/101

COUNSEL : M Tedeschi QC and T Smith D Dalton and B Rigg

SOLICITORS : S Kavanagh Legal Aid Commission of New South Wales

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COMMON LAW DIVISION

GRAHAM BARR J

9 AUGUST 2006

2002/101 REGINA v BRUCE ALLAN BURRELL

REMARKS ON SENTENCE 1 HIS HONOUR: The offender, Bruce Allan Burrell, has been found guilty by the jury of the offences of detaining Mrs Kerry Patricia Whelan with intent to hold her for his advantage and of murdering her. 2 Mrs Whelan was the wife of Mr Bernard Whelan, the Managing Director in Australia of an international corporation called Crown Equipment, which had its headquarters in the United States of America and premises in various parts of Australia and in South East Asia. Mr Whelan's office was at Crown Equipment's premises at Smithfield, though his responsibilities took him to other parts of Australia and to South East Asia. The Whelan family were comfortably off, as any casual observer would have realised. They owned substantial property and possessions. Equally obviously, Crown Equipment was a substantial company. In 1997 Mr Whelan was approaching his sixtieth birthday and his wife, Kerry Patricia Whelan, her fortieth. They had three children, a girl fifteen years old and boys fourteen and eleven years old respectively. Their marriage was Mr Whelan's second. He and his first wife had divorced and she had later died. Mr Trevor Whelan was an adult adopted child of that marriage. 3 The offender was born and raised in the Goulburn district. He became employed as an advertising salesman. During the 1980s he was working for a firm that did work for Crown Equipment. During the course of his work he came to know Mr Whelan. He also met the woman he would marry. During the course of his work he attended a number of social functions at which Mr and Mrs Whelan were present. So he came to know Mrs Whelan as well. He and Mr Whelan attended social functions together. They went sporting shooting together. There were tennis parties. When he and his wife married in 1985 the Whelans attended the wedding. He and his wife visited the Whelans on their farm in the country. In 1987 the offender's employer became bankrupt, so Mr Whelan arranged for him to join the staff of Crown Equipment. 4 In 1988 the offender, his wife and her parents purchased a property near the village of Bungonia, not far from Goulburn, called Hillydale. It comprised 470 acres. Although the property was capable of producing some income it was not prime land and was of modest size. Consequently it was too small to support a family or even a single person. 5 The offender remained with Crown Equipment until the end of 1990. In December of that year Crown Equipment was experiencing trading difficulties and it became necessary to reduce staff. It fell to Mr Whelan to tell the offender that he was retrenched. After that the offender obtained positions successively with two other organisations, but the employment did not last long. After that the best he could do was to obtain short term jobs on contract on odd occasions. 6 In 1995 the offender's wife, having recovered from a very serious illness, set up her own business. It prospered. By that time the offender was living at Hillydale and spending all or most of his time there. From then on he was largely dependent on his wife's income for his support. In May 1996 he and his wife separated and in December 1996 they came to a financial settlement, one term of which was that each had to raise a loan to buy out the offender's wife's parents' interest in Hillydale. Accordingly, the offender obtained a bank loan of $125,000.00. The interest payments on that loan exceeded $1,000.00 per month. From then on the offender received no financial support from his wife. 7 By May 1997 the offender was in serious financial trouble. Analysis of his several bank accounts shows that whereas in July 1996 he had a credit balance of almost $13,000.00, by May 1997 the balance was only $634.00, insufficient even to pay off one month's interest on the loan. Moreover, the accounts show that most of the offender's income during that year came not from salary, fees or wages for work done but from the sale of items like motor vehicles and from borrowings. Altogether the offender borrowed between $25,000.00 and $30,000.00 from his father, no less than $16,000.00 of it by May 1997. 8 After leaving Crown Equipment the offender had worked for an agency that did work for a company called Ultra Tune. In 1995 there was an intra-company dispute at that company and proceedings were commenced in the Federal Court of Australia. At the request of the Chairman of the company, Mr Peter Buckley, the offender swore an affidavit to be used in the preliminary stages of the dispute. The final hearing was fixed to begin in July 1997 and the understanding was that the offender would swear a further affidavit to be read at that hearing. Late in 1996 the offender tried to take advantage of the connection and asked Mr Buckley to write him a letter stating that he, the offender, was employed by Ultra Tune and stating the salary he was paid. Mr Buckley could not remember the figure nominated by the offender, but it was between $60,000.00 and $80,000.00 per annum. The offender's intention was to try to raise a loan on the strength of the letter. Mr Buckley refused his request. 9 Beginning in early 1997, the offender asked Mr Buckley a number of times to make over to him the sum of $15,000.00. Mr Buckley was unsure whether he was being asked to give the offender the money or to lend it. The offender's requests became increasingly insistent and aggressive. His final position was that he would swear the desired affidavit if Mr Buckley paid him $15,000.00. Mr Buckley decided to do without the affidavit.