Paul Steven Haigh

Paul Steven Haigh is an Australian serial killer currently serving six sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the murder of seven people in the late 1970s.^[1]

The Crimes

1978

In 1978 (within weeks of being paroled for a string of armed robberies) in separate armed robberies, Haigh shot dead TattsLotto agency worker Evelyn Adams, aged 58, and 45-year-old pizza shop operator and father of two, Bruno Cingolani.

1979

In 1979, Haigh began killing people he believed knew too much about his crimes. Haigh shot dead his associate Wayne Keith Smith, aged 27, and his associate’s former girlfriend Sheryle Gardner, 31. Haigh also shot dead Gardner's son Danny Mitchell, 10, who was sitting beside his mother in their car, to stop him identifying his mother's killer.^[2] Haigh's most brutal attack was committed against his girlfriend, Lisa Brearley, aged 19, whom Haigh stabbed 157 times after allowing another man to rape her at knifepoint.

1991

Haigh's last victim was sex offender Donald George Hatherley whom Haigh murdered in a jail cell at Pentridge Prison in 1991. Haigh claimed he "assisted" Hatherley to commit suicide by placing a noose around his neck, kicking a cupboard out from under him then pushing down on Hatherley's shoulders. A jury found Haigh guilty of Hatherley's murder.

Won right to appeal

On 19 April 2011, at a hearing before Victorian Court of Appeal justices Peter Buchanan, Geoffrey Nettle and Emilios Kyrou, Haigh won the right to have his sentence reviewed to determine whether he should be entitled to parole, after he appealed a 2009 Victorian Supreme Court (Trial Division) decision to deny his request to be given a minimum term. Haigh argued that the 2009 decision by Justice Betty King was flawed because it had been based on a 2005 pre-sentence report that was later withdrawn by the Victorian Parole Board and replaced in 2007.^[3]

The appeal was rejected on 13 December 2012.^[4]

References