R v Wales
[2003] VSC 115
•11 April 2003
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
No. 1522 of 2002
1521 of 2002
| THE QUEEN |
| v |
| MATTHEW ROBERT WALES AND MARITZA ELIZABETH WALES |
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JUDGE: | COLDREY J | |
WHERE HELD: | MELBOURNE | |
DATES OF HEARING: | 18 AND 19 DECEMBER 2002 | |
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 11 APRIL 2003 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | R. v WALES | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2003] VSC 115 | |
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Sentence – Murder – Offender killed his mother and stepfather – Offences premeditated but without any post killing plan – Obsession with perceived injustices perpetrated by mother – Relatively low intelligence of offender relevant – Belief that killing justified – No remorse – Pleas of guilty – Prior unblemished character – Need for general deterrence – Imprisonment for 20 years on each count – Total effective sentence after cumulation 30 years – Non-parole period of 24 years.
Sentence – Attempt to pervert the course of justice – Offender wife of murderer – False statement made to police at behest of husband – Offender subsequently informed police of crimes – Plea of guilty – Prior unblemished character – Offender primary carer of 3 year old child – Evident remorse – General deterrence relevant – Imprisonment for 2 years warranted but wholly suspended in unique circumstances.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the Crown | Mr W. Morgan-Payler QC with Ms G. Cannon | Office of Public Prosecutions |
| For the Accused Matthew Wales | Mr M. Tovey QC with Mr P. Morrissey | Clarebrough Pica |
| For the Accused Maritza Wales | Mr P. Dunn QC with Ms K. Rowe | Galbally & O'Bryan |
HIS HONOUR:
Matthew Robert Wales, you have pleaded guilty to the murder of your mother, Margaret Mary Wales-King and your step-father, Paul Aloysius King, at Glen Iris on 4 April 2002.
Maritza Elizabeth Wales, you have pleaded guilty to attempting to pervert the course of public justice, by making a false statement to police at Armadale on 9 April 2002 about your knowledge of events surrounding the disappearance and murder of Mrs Margaret Wales-King and Mr Paul King.
In order to sentence each of you it is necessary to have regard to the facts and circumstances surrounding the commission of these offences. This case has received an enormous amount of publicity and has been accompanied by a degree of rumour, speculation and innuendo.
It is important, therefore, to set out those facts and circumstances in greater than normal detail.
In doing so, the Court is reliant, to a considerable extent upon the version of events you both gave to investigating police in video-taped interviews made on 11 May 2002. Although at times, these are disjointed and on occasions, differ in the detail or sequence of events, a broadly similar version of the circumstances leading up to and following these killings emerges.
Most of the material is consistent with the forensic and independent evidence.
Matthew Wales, on 4 April 2002, at about 7 p.m., your mother and step-father arrived at your rented home at Unit 1, 152 Burke Road, Glen Iris. They had been invited for dinner by you, about one week earlier.
Mrs Wales-King parked her silver coloured Mercedes Benz sedan in the driveway of the front yard of your premises. That yard is surrounded by a two metre high brick fence and access to the driveway is through electronically operated gates. These gates were closed by you once the car had entered.
On this evening, you prepared the dinner. This was a normal arrangement because of your wife's working commitments at her Armadale clothing shop known as Maritza's Imports.
While she and your guests were playing with your two year old son, Dominic, in a bedroom called 'the toy room' and in the lounge room, you were in the kitchen making a vegetable soup and a vegetable risotto. Prior to serving the food to your mother and step-father, you took the powder of some tablets, previously crushed by you and which you had hidden in the medicine cabinet, and you laced the soup in each of their bowls with equal portions of it.
The powder was a combination of Panadeine Forte and Tenormin. The former were tablets prescribed to combat your wife's migraines. The latter were tablets belonging to your mother-in-law, Honoria Pizzaro, designed to control her blood pressure. You had stolen a number of these from the Pizzaro household in about late March after having discussed their effect with Mr Mario Pizzaro and having learned that the medication caused drowsiness.
The use of the tablets was part of a plan to kill your mother and step-father which you had been contemplating during the previous week. The immediate purpose of spiking the soup with the medication was to slow the couple down. Post-mortem tests reveal Paracetamol and Codeine within therapeutic limits in the blood of both Mrs Wales-King and Mr King, together with alcohol. Atenolol, available in Australia as Tenormin, was found in the blood of Mrs Wales-King.
In explaining your use of the tablets, you told the police that you wanted to hit your mother and Paul King, but did not wish them to go through any pain. The reference to hitting them related to a piece of wood, about a foot and a half in length, which you had taken from your garage and hidden behind a box hedge, about four feet from the front door of the premises.
You described the meal, characterised by unremarkable conversation, at which a bottle of red and a bottle of white wine was consumed, and after which Maritza served tea in the lounge room. It was now shortly after 9 p.m. and your mother and stepfather were exhibiting signs of drowsiness which you believed was the result of the pills. By this stage your son, Dominic, was also tired and becoming irritable. Maritza took him upstairs to change, feed and put to bed, farewelling your parents before doing so.
You told the police that coinciding with her departure your parents decided to go home. You followed them out the front door. Paul King was walking in front of your mother. You switched off the verandah down light, picked up the length of wood and, wielding it with both hands, you struck your mother on the back of the neck. She was immediately rendered unconscious and fell face forward onto the paved concrete surface. You then struck Paul King on the back of the neck with the same result.
You told police that you hit them on the back of the neck because you knew it would be quick. Your purpose was to break their necks, and your intention was to kill each of them. You then struck additional blows to each of the prone bodies. You said in your police interview: "My head was just going bananas and I just kept on hitting. I just kept on hitting".
You asserted that these blows were to the back of the head and not the face. However, the post mortem examination conducted by Dr Malcolm Dodd revealed fractures to the facial areas of both deceased. Although it is possible that in each instance the fall on to the concrete could have caused these injuries, it would require a high level of coincidence. Given your description of your mental state at the time, the blows you inflicted may well have been more widespread.
In your account of events you described throwing the length of wood beside the couple, each of whom were bleeding from the head region. You then checked them for signs of life by listening for breathing and searching for a pulse. You found neither.
Apart from the facial injuries to which I have referred, the autopsy findings in relation to Margaret Wales-King disclosed extensive bruising to the right side and back of the neck consistent with blunt force trauma. In the case of Paul King, there was evidence of blunt force trauma to the neck and facial areas. Those injuries, whilst sufficient to cause both deceased to lose consciousness would not, in Dr Dodd's opinion, have been sufficient, in themselves, to cause death. In each case, however, the pathologist observed signs of asphyxiation. In relation to Mrs Wales-King his findings included petechial haemorrhages in the mucus membrane of the epiglottis and the larynx as well as the trachea. Within the right strap muscle group there was a prominent haemorrhage which had a continuity with bruising to the back of the neck and extended over the upper right arm. In relation to Mr King, petechial haemorrhaging was found in the mucus membrane of the epiglottis and larynx and patchy haemorrhaging was also identified beneath the left jaw and the sternocleidomastoid muscle.
Dr Dodd gave the cause of death of both deceased as blunt trauma to the head and evidence of asphyxia. In the case of Mrs Wales-King there was hypoxic change to the brain indicating a deprivation of oxygen for some period. Dr Dodd stated that this strongly suggested the deceased did not die immediately after the assault. However, Dr Dodd, who did not give evidence in these proceedings, did not express a view as to the time, be it minutes or longer, which may have elapsed before death supervened. In his report Dr Dodd expressed the opinion that these findings were consistent with manual neck compression or, indeed, positional asphyxia. You emphatically denied that you had manually strangled the deceased. Positional asphyxia may occur when the nasal and oral airways of a person who is deeply unconscious are blocked. One such scenario could be where a body is placed faced down in soft soil, and the pathologist noted your account of subsequently dragging the bodies on to such a surface. However, as the Crown pointed out, for this to have occurred to both of the deceased would require a considerable coincidence.
Ultimately, on the material before this Court, it is impossible to make any definitive finding as to the specific mechanism of death or the period of time that elapsed from the infliction of blunt trauma until death ensued.
Whatever the precise situation, it would appear that prior to speaking to Maritza about what you had done, you believed that your mother and stepfather were dead. Indeed your subsequent actions on that evening are predicated upon that belief.
On your account you went upstairs and told Maritza, who had just put Dominic to bed, that you had done something to your mother and Paul. She came downstairs and looked at the bodies, although you could not recall if she had come outside to do so. She then started to cry before running back up the stairs and vomiting.
In your interview with police, Maritza Wales, you recounted coming downstairs after putting Dominic to bed to find the front of the house in darkness. You went to go out the open front door and you saw Mrs Wales-King and Paul lying on the ground. No sound or movement emanated from them. Your husband pushed you inside, and to your query: "What happened?" He replied: "I hit them." You described the scene as being very, very dark and from your vantage point you observed no injuries. You returned upstairs where you were crying and vomiting. Matthew joined you and to your questions he kept repeating: "I hit them." According to you, at about this time Matthew used words to the effect: "I had to do it. It's a relief." He also said that he thought the girl upstairs - that is in a flat opposite your Burke Road premises - had seen him and was calling the police. There is some confirmation of this conversation in your husband's record of interview, in which he told the police of his fear that he had been observed by the girl over the road who had been using a phone and looking directly at him. Further, he spoke both of his feeling of relief and his feeling that all his pain had gone. Whether or not Matthew had specifically told you at that point that he had killed the couple, I accept that this was certainly your belief. I should add, that police investigations established that at 9.08 p.m. the female tenant of the flat opposite had been talking on the telephone.
Next in the sequence of events, you Matthew Wales, dragged the two bodies by their feet face down onto the grassed area of the front yard. You then obtained your son Dominic's plastic blow-up swimming pool from the garage. It was in a deflated state and you placed it over the bodies. Asked by police whether this was part of the plan, you indicated that you had no pre-conceived plan.
Despite your initial fear that your actions may have been observed, you commenced to cover your tracks. Having taken the keys of your mother's Mercedes from her handbag, you drove the vehicle from your premises, ending up at Middle Park. You parked the vehicle near the intersection of Armstrong and Page Streets at an indeterminate time but before 2.00 a.m. on the Friday morning. That was the time that the car was first observed by a member of the public. It was not until the 10 April, however, that its significance was appreciated and the police were informed of its whereabouts.
You had put on latex gloves, which were kept for house cleaning purposes, when initially handling the deceased's bodies. You were astute enough to put on a second pair when driving the Mercedes so as not to leave fingerprints. You had also changed from the slippers you had worn during the attack, into shoes. After locking the vehicle you caught a taxi from The Esplanade St Kilda, and had it drop you off at the end of Burke Road. You walked home disposing of the latex gloves in a drain on the way. The slippers were also eventually thrown out so as to avoid detection.
On your arrival home your wife was in bed crying. At one point, either before you left the premises or after your return home, she told you that you had to call the police. A similar conversation occurred the next morning. You indicated that you would do so, but before taking that step you wanted to spend more time with your wife and son.
Maritza Wales, you told investigating police of observing Matthew through an upstairs window, dragging Mrs Wales-King onto the lawn area; (you thought by the hands). Matthew then came upstairs and told you he was going to get rid of the car. He said to you: "Do you hate me for this?" You replied that you didn't know how you felt. He hugged you and you said: "Don't touch me." You felt sick and you were shivering. You didn't wish him to touch you at all. At one stage both of you were crying. The withdrawal of physical contact is also mentioned in your husband's police interview.
On your husband's return you asked him what he was going to do. He responded: "I'll fix it." At that point you still thought he would ring the police. However, your husband's subsequent actions belied any such intention.
In summarising the ensuing events I have drawn on both records of interview and the independent evidence.
Matthew Wales, although you informed the police that you had adopted a fatalistic approach as to whether or not you were caught, later, particularly after your realisation that your actions had not, in fact, been observed by the neighbour, you came to believe you would get away with the killings.
Early on the Friday morning, you put two paint cans, a saw-horse and some other items on top of the pool cover, so as to make it appear like a pile of rubbish awaiting disposal. At 7.20 a.m. you hired a trailer from the Mobil Service Station at the intersection of Waverley and Burke Roads, East Malvern. You partly paid for this using your National Visa credit card. You told the service station attendant that you required the trailer for one day or possibly longer.
At 8.45 a.m. you purchased five D-shackles, five metres of sash cord and six metres of galvanised chain in one metre lengths, from Tait Timber and Hardware in Glen Iris. From the next door premises, the Melbourne Brick Company, under the guise of wanting concrete blocks to complete an internal fireplace, you obtained three bricks constructed so as to have holes in them. At this stage, you were thinking of disposing of the deceased's bodies by submerging them. The lengths of chain, joined as required utilising the shackles, were to be wrapped around the bodies and fed through the concrete bricks. This was to ensure that the bodies sank. It does not appear that you had any location in mind.
Maritza Wales, you described your feelings on the Friday morning as not wanting to talk to your husband and of wishing to be on your own and not at the house. You described your situation as being like a bad dream. Once your husband arrived back with the trailer, you took the car and went to work at the shop. This was about 9.45 a.m.
Meanwhile, you, Matthew Wales, waited for a time when your son, who you looked after during working hours, was asleep, before swathing the heads of your mother and Paul King in material you obtained from the laundry. You knotted it, to ensure that it remained in position, so that you would not have to observe the expressions on the deceased's faces. Next you slid each body inside separate doona covers that you had obtained from the linen press. The bodies were stiff, rigor mortis having set in. You wrapped the sash cord around the doona covers, so as to have something to hold onto, while manoeuvring the bodies. In accordance with the scheme of immersing the deceased in water, you placed a chain around the body of Paul King. You did not, however, attach a chain to your mother. You claimed to have undertaken all these activities in the front yard, sheltered by the high fence and operating on the fatalistic premise that you would either get caught or you would not.
The independent telephone records disclose that you rang Maritza on a number of occasions during the course of that Friday. You were seeking an affirmation of her love for you, which she gave. Nonetheless, she resisted your entreaties for her to come home, not wanting to be in the house. She begged you to make sure that Dominic was not exposed to the results of your crimes. You told her that you had placed the bodies on the trailer which you had then put into the garage. Although you gave conflicting versions about this matter, I am satisfied that you wheeled the trailer into the garage at some time on the Friday.
Leaving the bodies in the garage throughout the Friday night and Saturday morning, is indicative of your lack of any pre-conceived plan for their disposal. As to your state of mind at that time, you told the police:
"I didn't know whether I was going to come in and talk to you, I didn't know whether I was going to try and ... bury the bodies. I didn't know if I was going to try and submerse the bodies. I didn't know what I was going to do.
I was thinking of options. I was thinking of Maritza. I was thinking of nothing else ... Gaol as well, of course."
You also stated that Maritza was still urging you to go to the police. According to your wife, on the Friday night, you were an emotional mess and she was angry and wanting nothing to do with you.
On the Saturday morning Maritza had you drive her to the shop about 10 a.m. It seems likely that Dominic remained with her at this time. What is certain is that at 10.09 a.m. at Deans hardware store, Glen Iris, you purchased a mattock and a bottle of Liquid Magnet, a solution designed to clean cement and stone areas. You paid for these items with your Visa card. You told police that you also bought a blue plastic-type tarpaulin and white rope to secure it over the trailer. By this time you had decided to bury the bodies. You put the pool cover over them and then the tarpaulin. Another of the things that you did on the Saturday morning, was to telephone your mother's Mercer Street, Armadale home; believing you would be a suspect in her disappearance, you were endeavouring to throw investigating police off the track. The purchase of the Liquid Magnet was also designed to remove any traces of blood which might link you to the crimes.
Also, as part of your forward planning, you visited Fulton's Garden Supplies in East Hawthorn and at 10.19 a.m. you ordered half a metre of compost which you required to be delivered between 8 and 8.30 a.m. on Monday 8 April. Once again you paid by credit card. This was the compost you were later to spread on a newly created garden bed which had previously been the grassed area upon which the bloodied bodies of the deceased had lain.
During that Saturday morning, Maritza had developed a migraine headache. You had to bring her home from the shop about 11.30 a.m. According to each of you, she took medication, probably an Imigran tablet, before putting Dominic to sleep and going to bed herself in the early afternoon.
Armed with a shovel and the mattock that you had purchased, you left with the trailer soon after. You had with you the bricks linked together by the chain and you took the saw-horse so that, if anyone pulled you over and looked in the trailer, you could say that it contained rubbish.
According to you, Maritza Wales, your husband mentioned that he was taking the trailer, but he did not say where he was going and you did not ask. You described your attitude at this time as one of disbelief at what had happened and of not wanting to know about it.
Having purchased fuel and a map at Hartwell B.P., paid for with your Visa credit card, you, Matthew Wales, drove for a period that you estimated to be two and a half to three hours, before ultimately arriving in the Marysville areas. En route you bought a crowbar from Bunnings at Croydon. The time of that purchase is shown as 2 p.m. and you paid cash. In fact you told the police that you did not wish to use your credit card east of the metropolitan area.
You claimed to have chosen a country area because you regretted what you had done and because your mother loved the bush. It was still light when you arrived in an area later identified as Track 3 of the Woods Point-Warburton Road, Cambarville. You chose an area 20 metres from the track of the grave site. Using the digging implements that I have described, you excavated an area about four feet deep and about six feet long, being the approximate height of your mother.
This activity took you four or five hours, by which time it had become dark. You dragged the bodies from the trailer and placed them in the hole with your mother on the bottom and Paul on the top. You volunteered as the reason for this disposition that your mother had manipulated the man who had loved her unconditionally and you thought: "...if they are going to stay here, at least he gets to be on top."
Prior to the burial you removed a gold ring, necklace and bracelet from your mother's body. You told police that you did not complete the task because you started to panic, and other rings, including a solitaire diamond ring, remained on her left ring finger. The object of this exercise was to lead anyone finding the body to conclude that a robbery had occurred.
You put in the chain and bricks to weigh the bodies down, and covered them with the plastic pool liner. You then stamped the top layer of soil flat. It was your belief that you left the grave site at about 9 to 9.30 p.m. During the return trip you discarded the crowbar on a nature strip in Malvern. You told police that on your arrival home you chose not to discuss the matter with Maritza who you described as still having the migraine and being "pretty druggy." Your wife's account is of not wanting to know about it and repulsing your request for her to hug you.
On Sunday 7 April you removed the area of grass upon which the bodies had lain to obliterate any traces of the killing. You placed the grass and soil in the hired trailer. Meanwhile members of your family, having been unable to contact your mother over the weekend, were becoming concerned about her whereabouts. On Sunday evening your sister, Sally Honan, left a phone message expressing that concern. You did not ring her back until about 7.30 Monday morning. You told her you had no idea where your mother was, but you agreed to go to her house with your sister, Emma Connell. You reneged on that agreement, telling Emma you had things to do and suggesting that she arrange for her husband, James, to accompany her. Amongst the things you had to do was to accept the delivery of the compost you had previously ordered and to deposit it on the newly created garden bed. This occurred about 8 to 8.30 a.m. Maritza, whose shop was closed on a Monday, was able to look after Dominic, and you took the opportunity to return to the grave site with the trailer load of grass and soil. On the way you purchased six river rocks from Banksia Garden Supplies in Wantirna South. The reason for this was your concern that wild animals may dig up the bodies. This time you spent 15 to 20 minutes at the burial site. You placed the rocks and grass on top of the grave and raked the excess soil on to the rocks. You hoped the grass would grow on the site and the whole area would appear more natural. On your return to Melbourne you stopped at a car spa where you cleaned the trailer with a scrubbing brush to remove any trace of blood, and disposed of the tarpaulin and map. You returned the trailer at 3.30 p.m.
At some stage during those few days you endeavoured to remove traces of bloodstains left by your mother and Paul where they had fallen. This involved hosing down the area and using both Domestos and the Liquid Magnet you had purchased.
You also disposed of a number of items which could have linked you to the killings. You placed the shoes of your victims, which you claim fell off at the crime scene, your mother's bag, jumper and the jewellery you had taken from her, together with her car keys and her mobile phone, which you had deliberately smashed, into garbage bags. You asserted that these bags were deposited in various public bins on the way to Marysville with the bodies. This cannot be accurate in relation to the jewellery, if, in fact, you removed it at the burial site, although it may be that you were confusing the two trips that you made to the area.
As I have indicated, the depositional material discloses that members of your family became increasingly concerned at their inability to contact your mother during the weekend of 6 and 7 April. That anxiety culminated in the police being contacted on the afternoon of 8 April and Mrs Wales-King and Paul King being reported as missing persons.
Earlier your sisters, Sally Honan and Emma Connell, had told you that they were worried about the whereabouts of your mother and Paul, but at no time did you reveal to them that the couple had dined at your home on the evening of 4 April. That state of affairs only emerged after a Mr and Mrs Roche, with whom your parents had had drinks in the early evening of 4 April, informed the police that your mother had spoken of her intention to visit your house for dinner.
At a family gathering on the evening of 8 April you presented as being extremely distressed at your mother's disappearance. However your subsequent conduct, which included your lack of participation in family endeavours to locate your mother and Paul; your disinclination to go with your siblings to the location of the silver Mercedes; your subsequent refusal to accompany them to the burial site; your failure to provide police with a DNA sample; and your behaviour at the rosary, funeral and memorial services, aroused the suspicions of family members. According to your brother, Damien, in family discussions about what may have occurred, you advanced such theories as a car jacking or an attack in the garage of the Mercer Street home by a drug dealer. As part of your subterfuge you rang your sister, Sally, and brother, Damien, daily after 8 April, inquiring if they had heard any news about your parents.
On 9 April at the request of the investigating police you made a written statement which falsely asserted that your mother and Paul had driven from your premises about 9.45 to 10 p.m. on 4 April at about midday on the same day police visited you, Maritza Wales, at Maritza's Imports, seeking a written and signed statement. This you provided. It contained the untruth that you saw Mrs Wales-King and Paul King leave the house and that you were holding Dominic to say goodbye. In your record of interview you admitted that this statement was false. Asked why you had provided it to the police, you stated that Matthew had told you to. The following questions and answers then followed:
Q. "What did you hope that you would achieve by providing a false statement?" A. "Scared. Scared of losing Matt. Scared of losing Dominic. Just - I feel like I am pulled from left, right and centre. I didn't know what to do."
Q. "Did you have any discussion with Matthew prior to making the statement?" A. "This is the Monday when mum was missing and he said everybody's gonna get a police report. We all have to fill in a police report ... and Matthew told me just to say that ... we waved to them to say goodbye."
Q. "Did ... you and Matthew discuss what should be ... put in that statement?" A. "No. The only thing he said to me, 'Just tell them everything else,' he said, 'everything. Just ... don't lie. Just tell them exactly what we had for dinner, what happened, what kind of conversation.' He said, 'But just make sure you tell them that we waved goodbye to them', so I did."
Throughout this period the police investigations were continuing. With your consent, Matthew Wales, forensic examinations were made of your Nissan four wheel drive vehicle and your garage, and investigations into your financial affairs were conducted.
On the 29 April, John Gwilt, Alan Caddy, rangers from Parks Victoria, discovered the burial site. You were informed about this on Tuesday the 30 April and, according to Detective Senior Constable Robert Nazaretian, you became pale and anxious; but this news did not induce you to make any admissions about your role. Rather, you consented to further forensic testing of your house. Earlier testing in the garage had already revealed the presence of blood and the strong smell of a cleaning agent was noted; and on the 12 May subsequent to your arrest a leuco-crystal violet test of cement pavers in the front yard would prove positive for the presence of blood.
In your record of interview Maritza Wales, you speak of again urging your husband to go to the police and of his refusal to do so, saying that he wanted to spend more time with you and Dominic. He also pleaded: "Please Maritza, don't dob me in."
On the following Tuesday, the day of the rosary service, after speaking with your sister and mother, you decided to reveal what you knew of the killings. You later told the police: "I couldn't live with myself any more." You consulted with your solicitor on the Wednesday, and the police were subsequently notified of the situation. On Friday the 10 May you provided the investigators, through your solicitor, with a statement encapsulating your account of events. On the 11 May your husband was arrested and each of you made the records of interview, to which I have referred.
I have canvassed at some length the facts of this case, insofar as they are known; and I have done so in order to dispel any public misconceptions that might exist about it. I want to make it quite clear that there is no evidence linking Maritza Wales to the murders of Mrs Wales-King and Paul King. Indeed, the evidence indicates killings born of the idiosyncratic obsession of Matthew Wales, about which I shall say more shortly. That obsession led to killings perpetrated in the front yard of the family home in circumstances where the potential existed for other family members and neighbours to inadvertently witness them. Moreover, the rudimentary planning involved did not extend beyond the actual killings. As at 9.00 p.m. on Thursday the 4 April, no thought had been given to the removal of the deceased's Mercedes from the Burke Road premises; the elimination of evidence such as blood staining, which may have linked the crimes to that address; the means of transportation of the bodies and the method and the location of their ultimate disposal. In short, the circumstances bear all the hallmarks of a poorly thought out solo enterprise.
In the course of the plea counsel pointed to such matters as the delay of one and a half days before disposing of the bodies; the hire of the trailer, using your own credit card; the transport of dirt from your own garden to the gravesite and the deposit on it of environmentally incongruous river rocks, as examples of the ineptitude of your endeavours to cover your tracks. These are valid observations. On the other hand, you embarked upon a large number of activities over a considerable period of time, all exhibiting a dogged determination to escape criminal liability for your acts.
So much for how the killings were carried out and their aftermath. Why were they committed?
Matthew Wales, you told the police of great animosity and hurt between your mother and yourself and of anger that had been building up in you for years. You stated that your motive was not to be found in any desire to obtain your mother's money, but in the reaction against her using that money to manipulate you. You asserted that not only had your mother used the power of her money against you but also against your sisters. Indeed, your sister Prudence Reid, speaking to you prior to the funerals, had the impression that you believed that the family had been done a favour by your mother's death. That impression was shared by your father, Mr Brian Wales. When he spoke to you at Port Phillip Prison on the 29 May 2002, it appeared to him that you thought of yourself as a hero and as having done the family a favour in killing Margaret and Paul, no-one else in the family having the guts to do so. That was certainly not the view of your siblings.
You mentioned two incidents which you perceived as financial manipulation. The first related to a property in Horace Street East Malvern, which had been purchased in 1986 through the Matthew Wales Trust, set up and effectively controlled by your mother. Similar trusts were set up for each child with the objective of assisting them in the purchase of a family residence. According to your mother's solicitor, Mr Anthony Joyce, who was also a trustee, a dispute arose after you sold that property in October 2000. You desired the net proceeds, which amounted to some $134,000 to be paid to you. You wished to use $90,000 to set up a business, or on one view, to go to live in Spain. It was your mother's wish that half of the money be used to purchase a home for your and your wife. According to Mr Joyce, this resulted in a heated dispute which lasted for over a month and was only resolved when your mother relented and released all the funds to you in April 2001. You then used them for business purposes.
The second matter referred to in your record of interview, related to a trust set up by your grandfather, R.J. Lord, involving a unit in Surfers Paradise. Your mother and her sister were beneficiaries of the income from the unit, during their life-times, with provisions for payment of income to their children, if they deemed in necessary and with an ultimate discretion to pay shares of the income to their children and/or grandchildren. It was the desire of the sisters to sell the unit, but in your mother's case, to have a new trust set up to administer her portion of the proceeds of the sale. You and your sisters met at the offices of Mr Joyce in December 2001 to discuss these matters. Agreement could not be reached as to who should be new trustees, and the meeting ended in turmoil. A temporary rift developed between your mother and family members and you did not speak to her for about a month. Subsequently on 1 February, a document indemnifying the current trustees, if they accepted an offer of $565,000 for the unit, was circulated for signature by you and your siblings. Before signing it, you sought further information about the indemnity, which you also wanted to read. Further, you wished to know what would happen to the money. After receiving the documentation and speaking with Mr Joyce, you signed the indemnity in February 2002. For other reasons, the sale of the property did not proceed. In your interview, you told the police that this episode with your mother was the trigger for your ultimate actions against her.
As I have mentioned, you denied that your motive for killing your mother had anything to do with inheriting her money. In fact a provision in Mrs Wales-King's will was that each of her children, and Paul King, would inherit an equal share of the residue of her estate, estimated at being worth over $5,000,000; but in the case of each child, this was not to occur until the age of 40 had been attained. Given the cloak of privacy in which your mother shrouded her financial affairs, it is doubtful if either you or your brother and sisters knew the details of the current will. In any event, I accept that the killing of your mother was not motivated by a desire to obtain her money.
In the course of his comprehensive plea on your behalf, Mr Tovey S.C., (who appeared with Mr Morrissey), pointed to portions of the depositional material in which comments were made by relatives about Mrs Wales-King's attitude to the use of her money. For example, she was variously described as manipulating or controlling or dominating her children, through her use of money, particularly as they became older. It was also suggested that you, Matthew Wales, remaining financially dependent upon your mother, were more vulnerable to this activity. Further, it was stated that the drying up of the flow of funds to you created friction between you and your mother.
Such comments need to be put into perspective. Family members also make it clear that their upbringing, in which you, Matthew Wales, participated, was a privileged one involving access to several farms, a beach house, a unit at the snow and the benefit of a number of overseas trips. Moreover, all the children, including you, benefited from your mother's assistance in obtaining a primary residential property. At the end of the day it should not be forgotten that it was up to Mrs Wales-King to determine how she used her own money and how prudent her approach should be in retaining or distributing it. Ultimately it was being preserved for the benefit of her children, all of whom, at this time, were adults.
Apart from the financial matters to which I have adverted, there were matters of a more personal nature that you mentioned to the police.
You accused your mother of alienating you from your brothers and sisters. You asserted that she was going to treat Dominic the same way that she treated you - something you despised. Consequently, you did not want her to have anything to do with your son. You described your mother, on the fatal evening, as sitting back, thinking she was a queen, with "a dominant type of aura around her."
Evidence of your relationship with your mother was called on your behalf. A witness, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Court of an arrangement whereby she picked up you and her son from school. She said that she did not observe any closeness between you and your mother on those occasions when she observed you both together - primarily when your mother collected you from the witness's home, after school. I am bound to say that the weight to be accorded to such views, apparently formed 25 years ago, is not great.
A quite different viewpoint is expressed by your siblings. On their various accounts, you were adored by your mother who showered you with gifts, love and support. She was proud of you and your brother Damien as fathers; she was an advocate for you, always trying to be positive and to build you up.
I should mention that the depositions contain a number of lengthy statements by family members containing a mixture of hearsay, actual observations of both you and Maritza, and retrospective opinions. Not surprisingly, given what has occurred, they are irrigated by expressions of active dislike for both of you. It is only necessary to refer to those statements insofar as they serve to assist in understanding the events comprising these offences and to place them in context.
It was also your view that your wife Maritza, who I accept you idolised, and her family, were looked down upon by your family. According to Maritza's record of interview, you were reluctant to introduce her to your family, labelling them as "a bunch of snobs." It was put that when eventually driving to meet them in Boronia, your mother queried where the suburb was, how she could leave a Mercedes parked there, and asked your view whether it would be stolen. Your sister, Sally Honan, speaks of you passing on Maritza's views that your mother felt her family were just wogs. Your own view of your wife was that she was intelligent, stylish and elegant, and accomplished in retail business. Indeed you believed your mother to be jealous of Maritza's business achievements.
However your mother's relationship with Maritza, like most aspects of this case, is not black and white. For example even on your own account, at the time of these fatal events, your mother was visiting your home about once or twice a month. Ultimately, however, the Court is not concerned so much with the objective reality of the situation but with your own perceptions of your relationship with your mother and Paul King.
Because of the way your plea unfolded I need to address your relationship with Paul King. You said a number of things about him in the course of the police investigation. As early as 11 April 2002 you were asked by investigating police how you got on with him. You responded, "I think I got on best with Paul out of all the family. I really liked him".
In your record of interview your account of the reasons for the placement of the body of Paul King on top of that of your mother reflects, in an odd way, a type of sympathy for him. Later in that interview you confirmed that you liked Paul, whilst adding that you blamed him for the breakdown of your mother's marriage to your father, Brian Wales.
Your relationship with Paul King was also the subject of observations by your siblings, three of whom ventured the view that you and Paul were close. In discussion held with Paul's brother, Father Stephen King, on 10 April, you told him, in effect, that Paul was very good to you, and that he had spent hours helping with your school work.
It is against this background that your assertion that you were sexually molested by Paul King must be assessed. You made that claim to Mr Ian Joblin, the clinical psychologist who gave evidence on your behalf on this plea. You also spoke to Dr Lester Walton, consultant psychologist, about this matter. I do not intend to recount what you are reported to have said to each of them. It is sufficient to note that your account contained significant discrepancies.
You gave no evidence in support of your claim, but adduced evidence from a continuing friend and former housemate, Mr Michael Ryan. He deposed to a brief conversation at an unspecified Club Med venue when he was talking about his family and father, and you responded, "At least you weren't molested". You added nothing to this somewhat ambiguous assertion.
Your claim is quite contrary to the preponderance of the evidence, and I reject it. It is significant that your counsel did not rely upon it as a motivating factor in the killing. There is sufficient motivation for the killing of Paul King to be found in the frustration occasioned by his unqualified support of your mother's financial decisions; the resentment you claim to have felt in his earlier role in the disintegration of your mother's marriage; and his presence at Burke Road on 4 April as a potential witness to the killing of your mother.
A considerable amount of psychological and psychiatric material was placed before this Court. A starting point may be found in evidence both from family and friends and in school reports about the learning difficulties you experienced as a child. For example, a 1984 Caulfield Grammar School report for Year 10 notes the great difficulty that you had in coping with academic work at that level. One teacher writes of you generally wasting your time both in class and out of it. Your results are uniformly poor and below average. They did not improve in Year 11 and you left school in 1985 at the age of 17. Subsequent attendance at Taylor's College proved unproductive.
In terms of psychological material there is a report from a clinical psychologist, Mr Raymond Smith, of consultations when you were aged about 16 and your mother and Paul King were concerned that you lacked direction, motivation and maturity. Mr Smith's recollection was of you feeling marginalised by your siblings, all of whom were successful, and of your own immaturity and lack of self-management skills. His recall was that your mother tended to be protective of you and defended you publicly although feeling exploited by you. Mr Smith also had the impression that Paul King was eager to assist your mother in any way he could and that the distribution of your mother's wealth by way of gift or loan was a sensitive issue for them. Your involvement in hairdressing, representing as it did, a direction for you, was some relief to your mother.
The Court was told of tests conducted by Mr Joblin, to whom I have referred, which revealed that you have a full scale IQ of 83, placing you in the low average category of intelligence. Put another way, 88 per cent of persons in your age group would perform better than you. Whether your limited intelligence derives from some organic brain dysfunction was not established by the battery of tests performed.
Mr Joblin also reported on your inability to consider abstract concepts and the predominance of concrete thought processes.
In understanding these offences your limited intelligence is significant when combined with what Mr Joblin described as your obsession with the difficulties and injustices you regarded yourself as having experienced at the hands of your mother.
In terms of what you saw as your mother's refusal to allow you financial independence, you raised with Mr Joblin the issue of the Horace Street house where you claimed you were not reimbursed for $25,000-worth of renovations you had made to the property. Additionally you asserted that the receipt of any money was made conditional on your selling a pleasure boat apparently worth $30,000. The motive you ascribe to your mother for this action was her hatred of the pleasure you derived from that recreation.
Another major theme of your grievances was that your mother did not want you to be psychologically and emotionally independent. To this end she was intending to break up your relationship with Maritza, to whom you were devoted. You cited comments indicative of your mother's disapproval of Maritza's upbringing and family background. You also claimed that your mother attributed blame to you for the break-up of her own marriage, thus causing you significant distress. In seeking to summarise the situation Mr Joblin put it this way:
"There is no doubt that one of the bases for the offence was that Mr Wales had always wanted to be accepted by his mother for what he was, not simply as her son, particularly a submissive son. He wanted to be independent in his emotional and domestic situation. He wanted to be independent in his business so that she would be proud of him. He reported that he was totally frustrated in that and was never accepted for himself."
In light of the way your plea was presented I have canvassed at considerable length the factual material which bears upon your relationship with your mother. Allowing that there was a measure of objective reality in your views about it, those views became distorted as your obsession grew. However, it is important to recognise that it is your perception of the relationship, not that of other family members, or the objective reality, that provided your motivation. Indeed, Mr Joblin told the Court of the skewing of reality to your obsession about the perceived injustices in your relationship with your mother. According to Mr Joblin, you came to believe that you had been dominated emotionally, physically and financially by your mother all your life and the killing of her, and indeed Paul King, represented the ultimate expression of your independence. According to what you told Mr Joblin, the drive to take the life of your mother and that of her consort was not recent and in the past you had gone as far as making nooses and sharpening tools. To Dr Walton you spoke of the imaginary construction of electrocution devices. Whatever be the situation, the ending of what you characterised as extraordinary psychological abuse brought with it a sense of achieving the goal of eliminating the source of your distress. This is consistent with your comment to the police that after the killings you felt relieved and that all your pain had gone.
Dr Walton refers to your hatred of your parents which you said involved a build-up of pressure over many years. This reflects your comment to your father in the May conversation at Port Phillip Prison. "My motive is clear. Just utter hatred for the couple which I have had for the past eight years." It was Mr Joblin's opinion that the intensity of your feeling overrode any consideration of the wrongness of your actions.
Since the elimination of your mother and stepfather represented the consummation of an intensely held ambition, you feel no remorse for their deaths. Indeed, you told Dr Walton that you felt that your actions were morally justified. However, you did acknowledge that you had done a terrible thing and caused hurt to others, particularly your nuclear family and siblings.
Dr Walton found you to be suffering from no psychiatric disorder, whilst Mr Joblin expressed the view that you are not psychopathic, but rather that your actions were the logical outcome of your intense psychological drive. Both Dr Walton and Mr Joblin refer to the lack of planning after the killings occurred.
In terms of your prognosis, both experts see your conduct as limited to the unique situation involving your perception of your relationship with your mother and Paul King.
There are some matters of your own background to which I have not yet adverted which are relevant to the sentences to be imposed. However, before dealing with them I wish to say something about the deceased.
Margaret Wales-King and Paul King were aged 68 and 74 respectively, at the time of their deaths. Apart from attending to her financial affairs, Mrs Wales-King was a lady with a love of painting. Paul King had had a successful business career, retiring as Victorian Manager of a textile company Coates Paton. The Victim Impact Statements filed by the family of Mrs Wales-King all speak of their enormous sense of loss. All of them, including their own children, and Margaret's former husband Brian Wales, have been psychologically affected by the aftermath of these events. Some have required medical treatment. Dianna Yeldham writes of the devastating effect upon her and her children, of her sister's death. Sally Honan remembers a loving mother who was always there for her and became an adored grandmother. Prudence Reed recounts the depth of her grief, her sense of betrayal and the distress occasioned by the public intrusion into the private lives of her parents. Emma Connell speaks of loving, adoring parents and happy, vibrant family occasions. Damien Wales recalls a wonderful loving mother who lived life generously, loved her children and grandchildren equally and was always interested in their activities. His wife Elizabeth Wales, details the heartache and emotional turmoil of their children.
Although the Victim Impact Statement are directed principally to the family's relationship with Margaret Wales-King, it is clear that Paul King, who was devoted to his wife, had also become an accepted member of the family and his death has added a further dimension to their distress.
The deaths of Margaret Wales-King and Paul King and the circumstances surrounding them, are events from which their family and friends will never fully recover.
Matthew Wales, you are presently 34 years of age, having been born on the 18 July 1968. Your father Brian Wales, was an airline pilot and you were aged seven when your parents separated. You were the youngest of five children, all of whom may be regarded, and were regarded by you, as having been successful in life.
I have already discussed your schooling. After leaving school your mother obtained a job for you as a packer at McEwans. You remained there for three or four months before being dismissed. You commenced a 20 month course as a hairdresser, at the John Morrey School of Hairdressing. Having completed the course you worked for a year with John Morrey, then with Peter Sango and later Karl of Switzerland, for the same period. For about five years you worked at Lattouf International at Knox Shopping Centre, before travelling to Queensland where you worked as a hairdresser for Myers for six months.
On returning to Melbourne, you were again employed by Lattouf International at Doncaster and in March 1997, you were offered the opportunity to lease three or four chairs in the Lattouf Produce Shop at Knox City. This you did. In the ensuing years, until December 2000, you successfully operated your own hairdressing business, known as Hairhouse Warehouse, employing several staff and making $1,500 to $3,000 per week. Unfortunately at the end of 2000, you suffered a repetitive strain disorder to your hand, caused by the constant use of scissors. This prevented you working and you were not permitted to sub-let the business. Accordingly it ceased. No doubt this was a considerable set-back, since this business represented for you, a significant achievement and an affirmation of your independence and business acumen.
It was in 1998, during the period that you were operating the hairdressing enterprise, that you met Maritza Pizzaro. This followed upon other significant relationships, including a short-lived engagement entered into on your assertion, because of your mother's approval of the young lady concerned.
You married Maritza in May 1999, borrowing $25,000 to pay for the wedding. Your son, Dominic, was born in March 2000.
In June 2001, utilising the proceeds of the sale of the Horace Street property, you established the retail clothing business, named Maritza's Imports. Apparently you paid the previous tenant of the premises in High Street, Armadale, $20,000 to vacate. The rent was $400 per month and you paid 12 months in advance. Large amounts of stock were purchased from Hong Kong. Examination of the business books indicates that as at April 2002, the enterprise was not profitable and it had, in fact, been put on the market. Your next proposed venture was to set up a coffee shop.
In assessing the appropriate penalty for your offences there are a number of factors to be taken into account.
These murders were pre-meditated. The victims were elderly and vulnerable. After the killings you made a persistent and systematic effort to avoid detection. Moreover your lies and dissembling conduct, which continued until the time of your arrest, has caused your relatives, particularly your sisters and brother, an added level of distress and anguish.
It was put that in this case the significance of general deterrence was reduced by the rarity of sons killing their mothers. That is not to the point. The object of general deterrence is to dissuade persons from killing anyone, regardless of their relationship.
You were not suffering from any recognised psychological or psychiatric disorder. Consequently your mental state is not such as to attract any moderation of the weight to be given to the principle of general deterrence.
In relation to specific deterrence, the fact that your obsession was uniquely directed towards your mother and her partner, has the result, in my view, that you pose no real threat to the community generally and little weight need be accorded to this sentencing principle.
Although you have expressed regret at these killings, that is not the same thing as remorse. Indeed you have expressly denied any feeling of remorse and consequently you are deprived of the benefit of it in the sentencing process.
On the other side of the ledger, I have regard to the evidence that your relatively low intellectual ability limited your capacity to control your flourishing obsession. However, you are certainly not intellectually disabled and you were quite capable of operating a successful hairdressing business.
I take into account in your favour the fact that you have no prior convictions and no history of violence. Further, up until your unfortunate work-place injury, you had a good employment record. I also accept that you have been a loving and devoted family man. These factors, taken together with the narrow focus of your crimes, enhance your prospects of rehabilitation.
You pleaded guilty to these charges and in doing so, relieved a number of witnesses of the trauma of participating in a public trial. You are entitled to have that taken into account in your favour in fixing the term of any sentence.
Whilst submitting that your offences are at the serious end of the sentencing range, Mr Morgan-Payler, Senior Counsel for the Crown, (who appeared with Ms. Cannon), did not urge the Court to fix the maximum penalty. In all the circumstances this was, in my view, a proper submission.
An examination of the relatively few cases involving double murders indicates a wide variation in the sentences imposed. This is to be expected given their widely differing factual and personal situations.[1]
[1] See for example DPP v. Servedio (Court of Criminal Appeal, 10 November 1989) and R v. Crosbie [2003] VSC 69.
Before formally imposing sentence upon you, I wish to deal with the situation of your wife.
Maritza Wales, the Crown do not allege that you had any role in the planned killing of Mrs Wales-King and Paul King and I am quite satisfied that you did not. Apart from the factors to which I have already referred, it is inconceivable that you would have been a party to the killing of your parents-in-law in the front yard of your family home and without any plan for the disposal of their bodies. As I have already endeavoured to make quite clear, I am quite satisfied that your husband acted alone in perpetrating these crimes.
It follows that you were confronted with a totally unexpected and horrific situation. In the accounts of both you and your husband, your reaction to the revelation of these crimes has been detailed. It involved shock; distress, (which manifested itself in vomiting); anger; a withdrawal from physical contact with your husband; an endeavour to distance yourself from these events and the frequent urging of him to go to the police. Your husband's procrastination about contacting the authorities, phrased in terms of wanting to spend more time with you and Dominic, had the effect of you living a lie in the days and weeks that followed the killings. Eventually, faced with his continuing failure to contact the authorities, you took matters into your own hands and, through your solicitor, informed the police of what had occurred.
In the course of your interview, you were asked, in effect, why you had not earlier told the police what had happened. You responded, "Because I was thinking of Dominic. I was thinking of Matt. I was thinking of everything except for the right thing."
I have no doubt that as a wife and mother you were faced with a conflict between doing the right thing and loyalty to your family manifested in the fear of losing a husband with whom you were deeply in love and the loss to Dominic of his father. No-one would wish to be confronted with such a dilemma.
The course you ultimately took has had its own repercussions. You are currently being treated by a psychiatrist, Dr Stephen Adlard, for both grief reaction and anxiety. You have been prescribed anti-depressant medication. Dr Adlard sees you at risk of developing a depressive illness. Dr Justin Barry-Walsh in a report tendered to this Court, records not only your reactions to your husband's offences, (as I have stated them), but also the guilt you feel at one level for having gone to the police. That guilt derives from the love you had for your husband and the strong relationship he had with his son. Dr Barry-Walsh confirms your ongoing feelings of anxiety and distress. One aspect of that distress has been the massive media scrutiny to which you and your family have been subjected. According to both of the doctors, apart from your present difficulties, you have no underlying psychological or psychiatric problems.
In the course of his plea on your behalf your Senior Counsel, Mr Dunn, (who appeared with Ms Rowe), drew my attention to a number of matters personal to you which are relevant to the sentence to be imposed.
You are presently 39 years old. You were born in Santiago, Chile, and are the youngest of three children. Your parents are now in their 70s and they, like the rest of your family, remain supportive of you. The family migrated to Australia in 1976 when you were aged 13. Your father, who was a fitter and turner, soon found employment and the family rented a house in Mitcham.
By day you attended Aquinas College, a Catholic school in Ringwood, whilst at night you went to English classes. A reference from the then headmaster of that school attesting to your co-operation, endeavour and high moral character was tendered to the Court. After leaving school when you were aged 16 you attended Eastern Secretarial College for two years where you successfully studied shorthand, typing, book-keeping and associated commercial subjects.
In 1982 you worked for six months as a clerical assistant at the Eastern Youth Centre in Heathmont. Unfortunately you were laid off because of funding difficulties. In expressing regret at your departure the Centre Co-ordinator's reference describes your organisational efficiency, honesty, reliability and keenness as a worker.
In 1983 you obtained employment as a clerical assistant in the Classified Advertisements Department of The Age newspaper. You worked there for almost ten years. You left six months short of your long service leave because you missed your parents who had earlier returned to Chile and whom you wished to join. A reference you received from the Office Co-ordinator, Administration, of David Syme and Co used such terms as enthusiastic, co-operative, efficient, honest and loyal.
After living with your parents in Chile for about a year the family returned to Australia and the family home in Boronia was purchased. Employment followed as a sales assistant in ladies fashion at Myers Knox City division, and later in ladies shoes at Bally, Collins Street, Melbourne.
In the latter store you were promoted to Assistant Manager, and your departure from that business in May 1997 was accompanied by another glowing reference. Thereafter you held positions as a sales assistant at Alberto Piazzi, a shoe shop in Toorak Road, Teena Varigos, a clothing store in South Yarra, and French Poodle, a clothing store in Richmond. You left there towards the end of your pregnancy.
In about 1998 you had met Matthew Wales at his hairdressing salon and, after going out together for around 12 months, you had married in May 1999. Up until this time you had lived at home. Your relationship was a close one and, in written material submitted to the Court by one of your friends, you and Matthew are described as besotted with each other. Your subsequent pregnancy was a planned one, and your love of your son, Dominic, is beyond question.
Eventually, in circumstances that I have already outlined, Maritza's Imports was established.
The offence of attempting to pervert the course of justice is, of course, a serious one. As the Crown rightly points out, your false statement had the capacity to deflect the police from the investigation of two of the gravest crimes. Whether it could have resulted in your husband escaping criminal liability for his acts is problematic. In any event, the offence is one which strikes at the due administration of justice, and the need to deter others from engaging in such conduct is clearly a relevant sentencing consideration.
Of course the sentence this offence attracts will vary according to the circumstances surrounding its commission and factors personal to the offender. In your case there are a number of mitigating factors, not the least of which was the extraordinary and unexpected situation in which you found yourself and the excruciating conflict between loyalty to a husband who wanted more time with the family and doing what was legally correct. It is also pertinent that you ultimately came forward and told the police of your husband's actions.
You are 39 years of age. You have no convictions whatsoever. Indeed until this incident you had lived a blameless life characterised by an eager commitment to your country of adoption and a capacity for hard work. Until this incident you were an ordinary person raising a child in a loving relationship. Accordingly, your prospects of rehabilitation are excellent. This factor, combined with the unique circumstances of the offence, mean that little weight need be given to specific deterrence.
In their reports both Dr Adlard and Dr Barry-Walsh express concern for your own mental health if you are imprisoned. This derives from your anxiety about the future of your three year old son if he is separated from you as well as from his father. Concern is also expressed about Dominic's ability to cope and his own intellectual health and behaviour if separation occurs.
Although obviously not conclusive, these are factors which a court may take into account.
You are entitled to the benefit of your plea of guilty and a fair assessment of the material before the Court indicates that you are remorseful for your behaviour.
I accept that you have already suffered greatly through the publicity generated by this case. In itself this constitutes a measure of punishment.
Further, one of the consequences of your decision to contact the police has been the effective destruction of the marriage which was the cornerstone of your life.
Whilst the serious nature of your offence and the need for general deterrence dictates that a prison sentence be imposed, the requirements of justice may best be achieved in the circumstances of your case by wholly suspending that prison term. The length of the sentence will be two years suspended for the whole of that period.
Mrs Wales, I am giving you the opportunity of a future in which you are free to bring up your son. During the period of suspension you must not commit another offence punishable by imprisonment or you may be required to serve some or all of the suspended sentence.
Matthew Wales, in your case I have concluded that the appropriate sentences are as follows: on Count 1, the murder of Margaret Wales-King, you are sentenced to be imprisoned for 20 years. On Count 2, the murder of Paul King, you are also sentenced to be imprisoned for 20 years. I order that ten years of Count 2 be served cumulatively with Count 1, resulting in a total effective sentence of 30 years. I fix a minimum of 24 years before you become eligible for parole.
Further, I declare that the period reckoned as being served already under the sentence is 336 days inclusive of today's date. I direct that there be noted in the records of the Court the fact that this declaration is made and its details.
Adjourn the Court, please.
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