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. 10 It must have been quite obvious to the offender that things could not continue in this way. I am satisfied that he was in peril of losing Hillydale and knew it. I am also satisfied that it was by or during that period of time that he devised the idea of kidnapping someone and demanding payment of a ransom. Handwritten pieces of paper were later found at Hillydale setting out what I am satisfied were points he was contemplating making in a ransom demand. They were as follows - Exhibit BE – 1. HAS BEEN K 2. NO P. 3. LETTER WITHIN 2 DAYS. 4. NOTHING UNTIL RECEIVED. 5. STRESS "2" Exhibit BF – 1. COLLECTION 2. ADVISEMENT 3. WAITING 4. HOW TO PROCEED. 5. PICK UP 6. COVER ALL 11 I think that the letter "K" in exhibit BE stood for "Kidnapped" and that the letter "P" stood for "Police". 12 After the offender left Crown Equipment there was some continued contact between him and Mr Whelan. I think that Crown Equipment may have offered the offender one or two short contracting jobs. Their social contact may have continued for some time as well. However, whatever contact they had ceased after the occurrence of a couple of events that Mr Whelan found unacceptable. Mr Whelan owned cattle and the offender agreed to have them on Hillydale on agistment. They were pedigree animals of some value. The animals escaped from an unfenced part of Hillydale and were lost in the wild bush that adjoined it. On another occasion the offender got in touch with Mr Whelan and asked him whether he still had a certain rifle that he had used during their shooting outings. He said that a neighbour of his was having a problem with feral pigs and asked Mr Whelan whether he was prepared to sell it. Mr Whelan let the offender have the weapon, a .44 magnum semi-automatic rifle, so that he could show it to the neighbour to see whether he wished to buy it. Not long afterwards the offender telephoned Mr Whelan and told him that the rifle had been stolen from the car while it was parked in Redfern. Mr Whelan thought that the weapon was of a kind that would be very dangerous in the wrong hands. 13 Mr Whelan was angry about these two occurrences and as a result decided to have as little to do with the offender as possible. He avoided attending functions if he thought that the offender might be present. 14 On 7 April 1997 the offender telephoned Crown Equipment and asked to speak to Mr Whelan. A message was passed to him. It was then about four years since the two men had spoken and Mr Whelan had no great desire to speak to the offender. Nevertheless, he returned the telephone call. He expected Mr Burrell to ask him for a job or a loan. The most surprising thing about the conversation that ensued was that there was no such request. Mr Whelan was quite puzzled in the end. During the course of the conversation Mr Whelan mentioned that Crown Equipment was building premises in Adelaide and that he travelled there from time to time on Wednesdays to attend site meetings. By the time Mr Whelan gave evidence he could not remember precisely what he had told the offender, but I am satisfied that the offender then learned when Mr Whelan would next be visiting Adelaide. 15 The next visit to Adelaide was on 16 April. On that day the offender went to the Whelans' house at Kurrajong. He later told police that he had telephoned Crown Equipment on that morning and had been told that Mr Whelan was away and that, believing that he might be taking a day off at home, he had gone there to see Mr Whelan. That was a lie. His intention, I think, was to arrive at the house unannounced, but when he reached the front gate he realised that the gates were locked and able to be opened only by entering a code number on a pad. He did not know the number, so he had to telephone the house. Although he had a mobile telephone with him he returned about ten kilometres to Richmond to make the necessary telephone call from a public telephone. I think that he did so because he believed that a call from his mobile telephone would be recorded and be able later to be detected. Mrs Whelan was at the house that day, but so was Ms Minton-Taylor, an employee of the Whelans, and one of the Whelans' young sons, who was ill. When the offender telephoned he spoke to Ms Minton-Taylor. He drove back to the gate and she let him in. Once inside, he greeted Mrs Whelan and she invited him to have coffee. They spoke privately for some time. Immediately after the offender left the premises, Mrs Whelan asked Ms Minton-Taylor not to tell anyone that the offender had been there. She said that she would explain everything in a couple of weeks' time. Although she would not say why Mr Burrell had called, she assured Ms Minton-Taylor that there was nothing improper going on between them. 16 That conversation was remarkable. There is no evidence to suggest that there had been any contact at all between Mrs Whelan and the offender for years. Mrs Whelan was not expecting him to visit on 16 April. The fact that the offender did not telephone to enquire whether Mr Whelan was present or for any reason to announce his imminent arrival shows that he did not want Mrs Whelan, if she was there, to know that he was coming. I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the offender had with him the ransom note he had prepared and that his intention was to abduct Mrs Whelan and leave the note to be read by the first person who should return to the house. 17 Judging by Mrs Whelan's remarks to Ms Minton-Taylor, whatever the offender said to her surprised and embarrassed her. It is likely that it was then that the offender and Mrs Whelan agreed to meet in Parramatta at 9:30am on 6 May. I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that they did make such an agreement, and there is no evidence of any other communication between them between 16 April and 6 May, by telephone or otherwise. The evidence does not permit me to say what reason the offender put forward why Mrs Whelan should meet him, but I am satisfied that he persuaded her by some manner of means. At a time which cannot be precisely ascertained, she wrote the figures "9.30" in a diary for 6 May. Mrs Whelan also kept a more personal diary and may well have made a detailed entry in it, but unfortunately it has never been found. 18 Knowing that he was going to attempt the abduction at Parramatta on 6 May and knowing that he would be unable to give an innocent explanation for being in that city on that day, the offender decided to say if asked that he had been at Hillydale at the relevant time. In order to give verisimilitude to such an account he put it about that he was suffering from debilitating pain in his back. I accept that he had been injured many years earlier during a fall onto a hay-baling hook, but I do not think that any serious disability resulted. Although he had resided at Hillydale for a few years he had never been seriously enough affected to seek the help of any local medical practitioner. Yet, on Friday 2 May he telephoned a Goulburn general practitioner he had never before consulted professionally and asked for a prescription for tablets to ease pain in his back. The general practitioner left a prescription for the offender but he never collected it, even though he was visiting Goulburn at relevant times and could easily have done so. 19 On Sunday 4 May the offender drove to the house of his neighbours, Mr and Mrs Cooper, ostensibly to ask them to photocopy a document for him, and took some trouble by his words and conduct to convey to them that he was unable even to sit down because of pain in his back. He had driven his vehicle to their house, of course. 20 In due course the offender told the investigating police officers that he had been at Hillydale, incapacitated, on 6 May. 21 Mr Whelan had returned from a visit to South East Asia not long before 6 May and was next due to visit Adelaide on Wednesday 7 May. For that purpose he was proposing to fly from Sydney late on the afternoon of Tuesday 6 May. Since he and Mrs Whelan had been parted for some little time they decided that she should accompany him to Adelaide. To all appearances the morning of 6 May was a normal one for the Whelans. Mr Whelan prepared to go to work at Smithfield as usual. Mrs Whelan told him that she had an appointment in Parramatta and they spoke about her driving there and leaving her car in the place where she usually parked it, the Park Royal Hotel in Phillip Street. Mrs Whelan gave some reason for her visit to Parramatta, perhaps a visit to a beautician or some person who would attend to a skin condition she had. After they left home in their respective vehicles Mr and Mrs Whelan spoke twice by telephone before 9:30am. When they last spoke their joint expectation was that Mrs Whelan would drive to Crown Equipment's premises at Smithfield in time for the couple to travel to Sydney Airport and board an evening flight for Adelaide. 22 Images taken by a security camera at the Park Royal Hotel show that Mrs Whelan parked her car as arranged and walked into Phillip Street at 9:38am. I am satisfied that she did so in order to meet the offender according to an arrangement they had made, most probably when he visited Mrs Whelan on 16 April. I am satisfied that Mrs Whelan got into the offender's car shortly after 9:38am on 6 May 1997 and that he drove her away. He must have done so by some sort of trick, but it is impossible to say what sort. No doubt at first the journey had all the appearance of normality to Mrs Whelan, but I am satisfied that at some point on the journey the offender detained her. At some time afterwards, in a place it is not possible to identify, the offender killed Mrs Whelan. He disposed of her body. 23 At some time after detaining Mrs Whelan, but on 6 May, the offender posted a ransom note addressed to Mr Whelan at his house at Kurrajong. It demanded the payment of $US1 million and gave instructions about an advertisement that was to be placed in the Daily Telegraph newspaper when the money was ready for collection. The advertisement was to ask for the assistance of anyone who had seen a white Volkswagen parked in a particular place at a particular time. One of the things that the ransom note said was this - TO ENSURE HER SAFE RETURN YOU MUST AT NO TIME BRING IN THE POLICE … 24 The offender would have known that the note would not be delivered to Mr Whelan until Wednesday 7 May at the earliest and that it was likely that by the time he received it he would have reported Mrs Whelan's disappearance to the police. So in that respect the ransom note was not calculated to achieve its purpose, as the offender must have realised. The explanation, I think, lies in the way the offender produced the ransom note. I think that he may have done so by using the typewriter that police later found in their search at Hillydale. The typewriter produced type by means of a component called a daisy wheel. The typewriter found at Hillydale contained a daisy wheel, but not the one which had been used to type the ransom note. There was a ribbon in the typewriter, but that ribbon had not been used to type the ransom note. A daisy wheel of the kind used to produce the ransom note could have been used in the offender's typewriter. It seems possible that the offender used the typewriter to type the ransom note and then disposed of the daisy wheel and the ribbon, replacing them with the components which were in the typewriter when the police found it. Although none was found, it is also possible that the offender used another typewriter. However that may be, I think it likely that after he had had to abandon his attempt to detain Mrs Whelan on 16 April, for that is what I think that he was doing on that day, the offender found it too difficult to produce a further ransom note that he was satisfied could not be linked to him. 25 Police began searching the offender's house on 21 May and remained in the Bungonia district for several days. On 23 May the offender went to a public telephone box in Goulburn and telephoned Crown Equipment. He left a message for Mr Whelan from "the man with the white Volkswagen". He said that Mrs Whelan was all right and that Mr Whelan should call off the police and the news media. He said that he would be in touch again within two weeks. The offender later told the police that he had made a call from that telephone but claimed that it was to his solicitor. I am satisfied that he was being untruthful in that statement. 26 The Crown case against the offender was entirely circumstantial, but derived great strength from the range and independence of its several pieces or bodies of evidence. In my opinion the jury were right to return the verdicts that they did. 27 A good deal of planning went into the commission of the offences, including early preparations for a ransom note, the drafting and typing of the ransom note that was ultimately sent, the ascertainment of times when Mrs Whelan was more likely to be found alone and the invention of the reason the offender must have given Mrs Whelan to persuade her to meet him on 6 May. I do not accept the submission of defence counsel, relying on the ineffectual injunction against involving the police, that the offender's planning and execution were poor and amateurish. On the contrary, the offender's change of tack shows how flexible and resourceful he was. 28 The offender took steps to try to avoid detection, too. Immediately before the abduction he had been staying with his father in a suburb of Sydney and gave him a false, seemingly innocent, account of his movements. He disposed of the components used to type the ransom note. On realising on 16 April that he could not enter the Whelan property unannounced, he returned to Richmond and telephoned the house from a public telephone, as I have said, in order to obviate the risk of detection from the use of the mobile telephone which he was carrying with him. 29 The offender must have devised a plan to carry Mrs Whelan, unsuspecting, to a secluded place and there to overpower her. He must have taken care not to leave any trace of her in his vehicle. He hid her body carefully, probably in a place he had in mind before the abduction, and concealed it well enough to defeat a series of thorough police searches. 30 The offender was persistent, too, when things did not go his way. Having been thwarted on 16 April by the unexpected presence of Ms Minton-Taylor and the other member of the Whelan family, he concocted the story that so surprised Mrs Whelan and, presumably, led her to agree to meet him on 6 May. The ransom note purported to have been written by a foreign consortium experienced in kidnapping and extorting. Save for the injunction against contacting the police, it was calculated to achieve the offender's purpose. If it had been used on 16 April as intended, it might have succeeded in that respect. The note was as follows - THERE WILL BE NO SECOND CHANCES. FOLLOW ALL INSTRUCTIONS OR YOUR WIFE WILL DIE. BY THE TIME YOU RECIEVE THIS LETTER SHE WILL BE SAFELY IN OUR KEEPING. TO ENSURE HER SAFE RETURN YOU MUST AT NO TIME BRING IN THE POLICE THE PRESS ANY AUTHORITIES OR OUTSIDE ASSISTANCE. WE WILL KNOW IF YOU DO SO. THE CONSEQUENCES OF BREACHING TIS RULE WILL BE DIRE FOR YOUR WIFE. YOU ARE NOT OUR FIRST AUSTRALIAN TARGET THERE HAVE BEEN OTHERS. YOU HAVE NOT HEARD OF THIS IN THE PAST BECAUSE THEY HAVE IMPLICITLY FOLLOWED ALL INSTRUCTIONS AND BEEN REUNITED WITH THERE LOVED ONES. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE OUR CAPABILITIES. WE WILL KNOW IF YOU BREACH ANY CONDITIONS AT ANY TIME AND YOU AND YOUR FAMILY WILL NOT SEE HER AGAIN. THIS IS OUR ONLY GARANTEE. THE RANSOM FOR HER RETURN IS ONE MILLION US DOLLARS. THE RATE OF EXCHANGE MEANS YOU WILL PAY ONE MILLION TWO HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS TO BE PAID IN ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR AUSTRALIAN NOTES. ENSURE ONLY THE NEW PLASTIC NOTES ARE USED. NO PAPER CURRENCY. NO CONSECUTIVELY NUMBERED NOTES. THE MONEY IS TO BE DELIVERED IN A HEAVY DUTY GREEN PLASTIC GARBAGE BAG. THE MONEY IS NOT TO BE PHOTO COPIED. NO REMOTE TRANSMITTING DEVICES. NO RADIO ACTIVE DUSTS. NO DYES. NO MEANS OF TRACING THE MONEY IS TO BE USED. WE ARE ABLE TO SCAN AND TEST FOR ALL SUCH DEVICES AND ANY OTHER METHOD YOU MAY USE. DO NOT BE TEMPTED FOR IF ANYTHING IS USED TO TRACE THE MONEY IT WILL NOT BE COLLECTED AND YOUR WIFE WILL DIE. NO FURTHER CONTACT WILL BE MADE. YOU HAVE SEVEN DAYS. WHEN THE MONEY IS READY YOU ARE TO PUT AN ADVERTISEMENT IN THE PUBLIC NOTICE SECTION OF THE SYDNEY DAILY TELEGRAPH NEWSPAPER SAYING: ANYONE WHO WITNESSED A WHITE VOLKSWAGON BEETLE PARKED BESIDE THE EASTERN GATES OF THE SYDNEY OLYMPIC SITE AT 10:30 PM ON TUESDAY 8.4.97 PLEASE CALL -------------- THEN PUT YOUR HOME TELEPHONE NUMBER AT THE END OF THE ADVERTISEMENT. AFTER THE ADVERTISEMENT HAS BEEN IN THE NEWSPAPER WE WILL BE IN CONTACT WITHIN THREE DAYS AT YOUR HOME TO TELL YOU THE NEXT STEP. BE READY TO LEAVE WITH THE MONEY AT ANY TIME. THE MONEY IS TO BE DELIVERED BY YOU AND NOBODY ELSE. DO NOT SUBSTITUTE YOURSELF FOR THE DELIVERY. YOU MUST BE ALONE. HAVE NO WIRES ON YOURSELF OR IN THE CAR YOU USE. WE WILL KNOW IF YOU TRY TO USE THEM. DO NOT USE THE CAR RADIO. ANY SIGN OF OUTSIDE INVOLVEMENT OR INTERFERENCE AND YOUR WIFE WILL DIE. WE WILL BE AWARE OF EVERYTHING YOU DO. TAKE CAE THIS IS YOUR ONLY MEANS OF EVER SEEING HER ALIVE AGAIN. 31 The jury were instructed that the specific intent necessary for the crime of murder was an intent to kill. As to that element of the offence, the Crown case was that Mrs Whelan knew the offender and that he knew that she knew him. Once he had detained her he could never let her go because he knew that if he did so he would be exposed. 32 The law requires that if it is satisfied that the level of culpability in the commission of the offence of murder is so extreme that the community interest in retribution, punishment, community protection and deterrence can be met only through the imposition of a sentence of imprisonment for life, the Court is to impose that sentence. In my opinion the offender's detailed planning, his persistence, the precautions he took to avoid detection, his motive, namely the cold desire to extort a large sum of money, and the intent he harboured between 16 April at the latest and 6 May to kill Mrs Whelan, comprehend a level of culpability that is so extreme that the community interest in retribution, punishment, community protection and deterrence can only be met through the imposition of the maximum sentence. 33 Fortunately, our society is not like some, in which kidnapping has been commonly resorted to by criminal elements to raise large sums of money. The Court must do what it can to see that it does not become like those societies. Our society is entitled to the protection afforded by sentences that strongly deter others from committing such offences. 34 The offender was born on 25 January 1953 and is now fifty-three years old. He has a criminal record which is modest in context and which I ignore for sentencing purposes. Other than for a period of six months and one day between 19 October 2000 and 19 April 2001, the offender was released on bail pending his trial. That bail continued until revoked on 23 June 2006 following the jury's verdicts. I shall therefore date his effective sentence to commence six months and one day before 23 June 2006, namely on 23 December 2005. 35 Evidence put before the Court during 2005, when revocation of bail was being considered, suggested that the offender was not in good health. However, no such evidence was tendered on sentence. Neither was there evidence otherwise about the offender's personal circumstances. The proper approach for the Court, therefore, is to assume that whatever medical or other assistance the offender may need in the future will be able to be afforded to him in custody. 36 There is really no subjective feature by reference to which any argument could be put for a mitigation in sentence. It was not surprising that defence counsel made no such submission. There is no remorse. In any case, the objective seriousness of the offender's criminality is so great that subjective matters could scarcely be given any weight in imposing sentence. 37 Proceedings in this Court were delayed between 19 April 2001 and 27 September 2002 when the Director of Public Prosecutions discontinued and then reinstituted the charges. It was not submitted that this delay should sound in the resulting sentences and I think that that was an appropriate attitude for counsel to take. Compared to the objective seriousness of the offences, any effect of such a modest delay must be regarded as insignificant. 38 Two other matters fall for comment. Throughout the conduct of the trial, as well as the one that preceded it, the offender made trenchant and repeated assertions about the quality of the police investigation. Broadly, the assertion was that, having made up their minds at an early stage of the investigation that the offender was responsible, the police simply failed other than in a perfunctory way to follow up any suggestion or indication that any person other than the offender might have been involved. 39 There is a wealth of evidence to show that those criticisms were unjustified. Early in the piece, investigating police officers acted inappropriately, in fact unlawfully, in continuing to search the offender's house after the warrant to do so had expired. Otherwise, the investigation appears to have been carried out with appropriate persistency and thoroughness. In particular, the work of searching for Mrs Whelan's body, of examining the videotape of a vehicle recorded at the Park Royal Hotel on 6 May and investigating the whereabouts of vehicles like the one used by the offender and of following up apparently genuine reports made by members of the public, show how assiduous the officer in charge and all the many police officers who assisted him were in their conduct of the investigation. The community owes a debt of gratitude to the investigating police officers for the thoroughness of their investigations. 40 I have not given this matter any weight in determining the sentences. 41 The second matter is the effect of the offences on Mr Bernard Whelan, Mrs Whelan's husband, Mr Matthew and Mr James Whelan, their children, Mrs Leverett, daughter of Mr Whelan and the first Mrs Whelan and Mr Brett Ryan, the brother of Mrs Whelan. These members of the family read or signed Victim Impact Statements which were put before the Court. Their contents may be accepted. All have suffered immeasurable anguish and grief over Mrs Whelan's abduction and death. The Court should also acknowledge the additional hurt that must have been suffered by Mr Bernard Whelan, who during cross-examination was required to respond to suggestions or insinuations of having committed adultery and of having been involved in the disappearance of Mrs Whelan. The same may be said of the offender's insinuations that Mr Trevor Whelan may have been involved in Mrs Whelan's disappearance. 42 The sympathy of the Court is extended to Mr Bernard Whelan and the other members of the families. It is to be hoped that the ending of these proceedings will promote the healing of their wounds. 43 I have not given weight to these matters in determining the sentences. 44 The essence of the offence of detaining for advantage comprises a detention against the will and the intention of holding for advantage. As appears from the remarks I have already made, I regard the offender's act of detaining Mrs Whelan against her will and the intent with which he held her, namely to create the chance that his ransom demand might be met, as part of his criminality in the offence of murder. The circumstances of the two offences are inextricably tied together, as is exemplified by the fact that the offender's reason for killing Mrs Whelan was to conceal his responsibility for her detention. I therefore intend to impose concurrent sentences for the two offences. 45 As to the count of detaining for advantage, the offence was a very serious one of its kind. The offender succeeded in his intention only after a long, careful and persistent series of preparations and acts. His motive was the cold desire to enrich himself. It was not submitted that there was any circumstance justifying a non-parole period less than three-quarters of the term of the sentence. In my opinion there is none. 46 Bruce Allan Burrell, for the murder of Kerry Patricia Whelan I sentence you to imprisonment for life. Your sentence will be taken to have commenced on 23 December 2005. For the detention of Mrs Whelan with intent to hold her for your advantage I sentence you to imprisonment for sixteen years, commencing on 23 December 2005 and expiring on 22 December 2021. I fix a non-parole period of twelve years expiring on 22 December 2017. ************ 09/08/2006 - n/a - Paragraph(s) n/a DISCLAIMER - Every effort has been made to comply with suppression orders or statutory provisions prohibiting publication that may apply to this judgment or decision. The onus remains on any person using material in the judgment or decision to ensure that the intended use of that material does not breach any such order or provision. Further enquiries may be directed to the Registry of the Court or Tribunal in which it was generated.