A STONE memorial to honour Jill Meagher has been removed from the remote
roadside where her body was found.
Melton City Council has confirmed it has taken the 50 kilogram granite slab
from Black Hill Road, Toolern Vale.
Bruce Wood, who attends the site daily as its self-appointed guardian, said
he was struggling to understand the council’s logic.
“This was well off the roadside and obscured by two wattle trees. I’m
shattered, disappointed, demoralised,” Mr Wood said.
SEE: Baillieu ‘sad’ at removal
Stonemason Joe Trovato laid the stone carefully at the site in late
September. It carries the message: “In loving memory of Jill Meagher. September
2012. Loved by family, friends and many Australians whose hearts have been
touched. Rest in Peace”.
Mr Trovato said the council had told him last week that it was going to move
the memorial, and asked whether he objected.
‘‘I told them I was OK with it, but I wasn’t sure whether the Australian
public would be,’’ Mr Travato said.
The council’s Family, Youth and Housing Manager, Matthew Wilson, said the
memorial had been removed ‘‘with the permission of the family and in
consideration of the Black Hill Road community’’ and had been sent with other
items to a contact of the Meagher family.
Mr Wood said the council told him they had cleared the memorial only after it
had removed the plaque last Friday.
The granite slab was believed to be the first permanent memorial for the
29-year-old Irishwoman who was allegedly abducted from Sydney Road in Brunswick
and murdered six weeks ago.
Mr Wood had hoped to plant a flowering gum at the site that would blossom
each September as a lasting tribute to Jill. “It would be a quiet gum tree
sitting between two wattle trees.” But he said the council was not keen on that
idea.
Fairfax reported on October 18 that Melton City Council was considering
moving the floral tributes at the site in a compromise with locals who it said
were upset over the ongoing attention and concerned it was attracting too much
traffic.
But Mr Wood said apart from people travelling to the city from Gisborne early
in the morning to work and back home in the evening, “a few tradies and the odd
truck or two” only used the dirt road.
“There is nothing in the immediate vicinity. There are no houses in very
close proximity. There are no schools in that area.”
The council’s family, youth and houses manager Matthew Wilson said before the
plaque was removed that the council was “seeking to fully understand the wishes
of the family regarding this site and will act accordingly”.
Nevertheless Mr Wood said the floral tributes keep on coming and it will
“continue once the case starts in January and next year once the anniversary
comes around”.
“Why this particular thing has upset me, I don’t know. I’ve been in floods
and bushfires… working in snow rescues up in the Dandenongs where people have
lost their way but this has really knocked the socks of me.”
Adrian Ernest Bayley, 41, of Coburg has been charged in relation to Jill’s
death and will appear in court in January.
