REMORSE, or lack thereof, is an important consideration often hotly debated in courtrooms across NSW when it comes time for someone to be sentenced for a crime.
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But those emotions were noticeably absent in a number of the major criminal cases in the Hunter in 2023.
Wannabe serial killer Kevin James Pettiford had no remorse for the two homeless men he bludgeoned to death, or for the Cessnock jail inmate whose throat he slashed. Likewise Zachary Joel Dowling, who showed no remorse for murdering his 64-year-old boyfriend Brian O'Sullivan at a Mayfield boarding house in June, 2021.
And if serial sex offender Colin William Babbage has any regret for his latest knifepoint rape, it is almost entirely due to the fact that he was caught and again finds himself back in jail.
It was another busy year in Hunter courts, with a hitman murder trial, a host of other callous killings and lengthy jail terms for sexual predators the cases that dominated the headlines in 2023. But there were a number of other horrific or important cases, including a Maitland masseur unmasked as a sexual predator and a young woman kidnapped and tortured in a Mount Hutton back shed.
The case: R v Zachary Joel Dowling
Zachary Joel Dowling was a quick-to-anger career criminal and alcoholic with a history of choking older men when he went into his bedroom at a Mayfield boarding house with 64-year-old Brian O'Sullivan on the night of June 29, 2021.
After about an hour of loud noises, grunting and banging, which other residents interpreted as bouts of "rough sex", Dowling emerged alone.
Inside the bedroom, Mr O'Sullivan was dead, the victim of a "heinous" domestic violence murder. His body lay there for four days while Dowling came and went and complained of the smell.
Dowling admitted later that he had wrapped his hands around his boyfriend's neck, pushing his dentures down his throat and forcing him to asphyxiate. He pleaded guilty to murder on the basis of reckless indifference to human life and showed no remorse. When a friend asked him if he missed Mr O'Sullivan, Dowling replied: "Nah, not one little bit".
Dowling was jailed for a maximum of 22 years and six months, with a non-parole period of 16 years and 10 months, making him eligible for parole in 2039.
The case: R v Kevin James Pettiford
The case of R v Kevin Pettiford is unlike any other in Australia this year. Perhaps any year. He killed two homeless men, tried to kill another inmate at Cessnock jail and slashed a prison guard. He also called himself the "Hand of Death", wanted to be Australia's most prolific serial killer and wrote letters taunting police.
Pettiford is considered so dangerous and unpredictable that his murder trial in November and December had to be held in the high-security court complex at Parramatta.
When his lawyers wanted the glass perspex open to the court dock so they could confer with him during the trial, Corrective Services NSW said they could not guarantee the safety of those in the courtroom.
Pettiford did not deny the killings or slashing the inmate's throat but pleaded not guilty and raised a defence of mental health impairment. The trial focused mostly on dense psychiatric evidence and Pettiford's own words in a number of police interviews.
In those interviews Pettiford said he knew he was "evil" but justified his acts by saying he targeted people who he thought would not be missed. But it was some of those comments that might have convinced jurors that Pettiford knew what he was doing was wrong, the test for a defence of mental health impairment, and he was found guilty.
Pettiford will be sentenced in February.
The case: R v Mervyn Arthur Fullford
When well-known masseur Merv Fullford was charged in 2020 with sexually touching female clients at his Maitland home massage therapy business, there were those in the tight-knit sporting community who refused to believe it.
But once those first two victims came forward, the number of former clients accusing Fullford of sexual abuse quickly ballooned to more than a dozen.
He pleaded not guilty and faced a trial in April that spent the first two weeks hearing evidence from a number of women who told similar stories about being inappropriately or sexually touched during appointments between 2015 and 2020.
When it came time for Fullford to take the stand, he promptly had a change of heart. He pleaded guilty mid-trial to more than a dozen counts and in November, after hearing of the impacts of his many deviant crimes, was jailed for a maximum of 15 years. In Fullford's case, a judge found he had expressed some remorse for the women, but still lacked insight into his behaviour and was trying to minimise what happened.
The case: R v Kyna McAuley
IT all started with a car accident on a windy stretch of road at Mount Hutton.
The driver, a young woman, had taken a Xanax and fallen asleep behind the wheel, driving off the road and into a ditch with a child in the back seat. No one was hurt and it was a situation that should have been relatively easily resolved.
Instead, over the next 24 hours, the driver was tied up in a backyard shed, struck in the head with a hammer, had her teeth knocked out, was burnt with a cigarette and had boiling water poured over her head.
The young woman was terrified she was going to be killed and wet her pants when someone pinned her down and Kyna McAuley, the child's mother, started a grinder and said "take her arms off".
McAuley denied being involved in the kidnapping and torture, but was found guilty after a trial in Newcastle District Court in June. She was later jailed for a maximum of 10 years.
The case: R v Colin William Babbage
From the ages of 21 to 65, Colin William Babbage has now been convicted of raping three women and indecently assaulting a fourth. And it was with a knife to the throat of his most recent victim, that Babbage uttered a terrifying threat.
"You can't stir me up like that," he grunted to the 31-year-old woman, a complete stranger, in his unit in The Junction in June, 2021. "I'll cut your head off and chop your body up into little pieces."
And after he was jailed in August for a maximum of eight-and-a-half years for his latest horrific sexual assault, the Newcastle Herald revealed the full details of a man who has been intermittently perpetrating some of the most horrendous attacks on women in the Hunter.
The sentence means he will be first eligible for parole in December, 2026. It will be two days before his 69th birthday and unless he receives significant support and supervision he will remain a serious risk of attacking again.
The case: R v Jarryd Lee Hayne
Finally, it wouldn't be a court recap without mentioning the latest instalment in the Jarryd Hayne saga.
Hayne was in 2023 again found guilty of twice raping a woman at her home in the Hunter in 2018. The former NRL star has faced three trials over the visit to the woman's house on grand final night, with the first ending in a hung jury and the guilty verdict after the second quashed on appeal.
In May, Hayne was jailed for a maximum of four years and nine months, with a non-parole period of three years.
He is currently eligible for parole in May, 2025, but is said to be appealing again.
