THE parents of Sarah Cafferkey have stared down her killer in court and told him of their devastation her loss has caused them.
Adrian Cafferkey and Noelle Dickson separately glared at Steven James Hunter, who killed their daughter, as they read victim impact statements at his plea hearing in the Supreme Court on Monday.
Addressing the lawyers seated before him, Mr Cafferkey pointed at Hunter in the dock and referred to his previous conviction for murder and long criminal history.
“Since she was so senselessly and cruelly taken from me, all I can do is stand here before you with the knowledge of his past and ask, how and why,” he said.
Ms Dickson, clutching a pink ribbon and a framed photograph of her daughter, said she was consumed by constant visions of Ms Cafferkey being brutally stabbed before Hunter dumped her body in a wheelie bin and covered her remains with concrete.
“My body aches of pain and sickness, with my family and friends not knowing how to comfort me,” she said.
“To be thrown out like rubbish, let me tell you, Sarah was not a piece of rubbish. She was a beautiful, funny, caring human being who was loved by everyone who was part of her life.”
Staring directly at Hunter, Ms Dickson spoke of the pain at never attending her only child’s wedding or to be there when she had her own children. “I will never be a grandmother,” she said.
Hunter, who has pleaded guilty to murdering Ms Cafferkey, did not meet the stares of her parents as he sat at the back of the courtroom, flanked by two guards.
During his plea hearing, the court heard Hunter hit Ms Cafferkey with a blunt instrument and then stabbed her 19 times at his Bacchus Marsh home on November 10 last year, before he dumped her body in a wheelie bin in the garage of a home in Point Cook.
The court heard Ms Cafferkey and Hunter, friends at the time, argued after drinking alcohol and using drugs together before he killed her.
The court heard Hunter went to lengths to conceal his crime, including pouring hydrochloric acid and concrete over Ms Cafferkey’s body in the bin, sending messages to her phone to avoid suspicion and later not using his own phone to avoid electronic surveillance by police.
Ms Cafferkey’s body was discovered one week after her death and police arrested Hunter three days after that.
The court heard Hunter had just completed a term of parole when he killed Ms Cafferkey, having also served a jail term for the murder of his colleague, Jacqueline Matthews, in 1986.
Mr Cafferkey said justice had failed his daughter, which was ironic given she was studying the subject and had a passion for it.
He said his family was serving a life sentence, that he had had his spirits crushed and that his family had become polarised, isolated and withdrawn. Upon returning to his seat in court, he paused and glared at Hunter, but the killer did not meet his eyes.
About 25 of Ms Cafferkey’s relatives and friends sat in court during the plea hearing, as well as Sandra Betts, whose daughter Rachael was murdered in 2009.
Several people in the gallery wore white ribbons to signify the campaign against violence against women.
Hunter, wearing jeans and a brown suede jacket over a green top, sat unmoved through the hearing. He is yet to be sentenced.
