Gillian "Jill" Meagher ( ; ) was a 29-year-old Irish woman living in Australia who was raped and murdered while walking home from a pub in Brunswick, an inner suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, in the early hours of 22 September 2012.
Meagher's case was initially classified as that of a missing person, as she had failed to return home to her husband, Tom Meagher. But it soon became a homicide investigation. Her disappearance attracted widespread media attention and a review of closed-circuit television images from the area of her disappearance. Her body was discovered six days later near Gisborne South, about 50 kilometres (31 miles) north from Brunswick.
Adrian Ernest Bayley pleaded guilty to Meagher's rape and murder in April 2013. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a 35-year non-parole period. His bid to appeal his minimum term, in September 2013, was unsuccessful. In May 2015, Bayley was sentenced to another 18 years and his non-parole period was extended from 35 to 43 years for three other rape convictions. In July 2016, the sentence was reduced to 40 years, deducting three years of the term, making Bayley eligible for parole in 2055.
Victim Gillian McKeon was born on 30 October 1982 in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland."Father says justice done as Jill Meagher murderer jailed", The Irish Times, 19 June 2013. She spent her early childhood in Termonfeckin village to the north of Drogheda. The family relocated to Australia when her father, George McKeon, gained a job in Perth. During her time in the city, she attended Bull Creek Primary School and Rossmoyne High School before returning to Ireland with her family in 1996. Back in Ireland, she attended Drogheda Grammar School and St Oliver's Community College in Drogheda before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree from University College Dublin. After graduation, she worked for the Irish national broadcaster RTÉ.
Meagher did not formally move to Australia until 2009 after she met and married Tom Meagher in Ireland in 2008. After arriving in Australia, she settled in Melbourne and began working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). She stayed in touch with her parents who were by then living again in Perth, Western Australia. In September 2012, she had come back to Melbourne after visiting her parents when her father had a bout of ill health.
Meagher worked for the ABC in an administrative and occasional on-air role at ABC Radio Melbourne.
Disappearance After work on 21 September 2012, Meagher went with co-workers from ABC Melbourne to the Brunswick Green bar on Sydney Road, Brunswick, later moving to Bar Etiquette (also on Sydney Road and now closed). She left the bar at around 1:30 am and began the short walk back to the home she shared with her husband.
While walking home, Meagher called her brother, Michael McKeon, and spoke with him briefly about their father. At their flat, her husband woke to realise she was not home and started searching for her. When she could not be found or contacted by phone, he contacted the police.
In the days after she went missing, Meagher's ABC colleagues used Twitter to help in the search for her. A Facebook page, "Help us Find Jill Meagher" (now defunct), was started on 23 September in the hope of finding her alive. A poster campaign was also launched. By 27 September, five days after her disappearance, the Facebook page had received over 100,000 "likes". The public soon became aware of the search, primarily through the growing number of media reports and the Facebook page.
On 24 September, Meagher's handbag was found by police in a laneway near Hope Street, Brunswick. This was close to where she lived. Police were suspicious as to how it came to be there because the area had previously been searched by them.
On 25 September, closed-circuit television (CCTV) video was handed to and then released by Victoria Police. The video was provided to them by an employee of the Duchess Boutique, a bridal shop based on Sydney Road near Hope Street. It had been recorded from within the shop but had a limited view of the street through its front windows. It showed her speaking to a man in a blue hoodie at around 1:42 am on the night she disappeared. At one point she brandishes her mobile phone at him. The man had also been filmed walking outside the shop four minutes earlier. This was the last known time that Meagher was captured on camera.
Investigation, arrest, guilty plea and other legal consequences
Adrian Ernest Bayley The police investigation was assisted by the CCTV video from the Duchess Boutique as well as CCTV video taken elsewhere and monitoring the movements of Meagher's mobile phone.
The homicide squad had taken over the case on 24 September. Prior to receiving the CCTV video from the Duchess Boutique on 25 September, they had thoroughly searched the Meaghers' flat and took away some possessions, including their car, for testing. After receiving the video, attention switched to looking for the man in the blue hoodie, though a second search of the Meaghers' flat took place on the evening of 25 September, with more items removed for testing.
At about 2:30 pm on 27 September, police arrested Adrian Ernest Bayley, then 41, at his address in Coburg, and then questioned him at great length. It transpired that he had been the man in the blue hoodie. During the interrogation, Bayley ended up breaking down and admitting that he had strangled her with his hands in a lane off Hope Street, Brunswick. He had then buried her.
At around 10:00 pm on 27 September, Bayley led police to where Meagher's body was buried in a shallow grave on Black Hill Road near Gisborne South. She had been strangled after being raped.
Bayley was charged with rape and murder at about 2:00 am on 28 September and, followed by an out-of-sessions hearing at 3:00 am that lasted for about 90 seconds, was held on remand to await trial. While in custody, he attempted suicide.
Bayley's arrest and the finding and exhumation of Meagher's body generated considerable media and public response, especially when it was soon revealed that Bayley was already on parole for a series of sexual offences. At a pre-committal hearing in January 2013 a two-day committal case in the Melbourne Magistrates Court was scheduled to begin on 12 March 2013. According to news reports at the time, Bayley intended to fight the charges. On 5 April 2013, he pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of Meagher. On 26 April 2013, he pleaded not guilty to a number of other sexual assaults in Melbourne dating back to 2000. Bayley appeared in court on 11 June 2013 for a pre-sentencing hearing.Victim Impact statements, IrishTimes.com. Accessed 5 December 2022.
On the date of the pre-sentencing hearing, a suppression order was also lifted by Justice Geoffrey Nettle allowing Bayley's "extensive history of rape and violence" to be revealed and these also generated headlines.
On 19 June 2013, in front of a packed public gallery at the Victorian Supreme Court, Bayley was sentenced by Justice Nettle to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 35 years.
In September 2013, Bayley lodged an appeal against his sentence through Victorian Legal Aid. The appeal argued that the minimum sentence was too long and that he had not taken "perverted pleasure" in murdering Meagher as stated by Justice Nettle. On 26 September 2013, the appeal was dismissed in less than 10 minutes after "hearing argument from counsel on both sides over [approximately one and a half hours]" "during the days beforehand".
By March 2015, Bayley had been found guilty of three more rapes, committed before he killed Meagher, in three separate trials held in 2014 and 2015. The victims, two sex workers and a Dutch backpacker, came forward due to the high level of publicity over Meagher's rape and murder. He had by then been convicted of sexual crimes against 12 people.
Later, in May 2015, Bayley was sentenced to another 18 years by County Court judge Sue Pullen, and his non-parole period was extended from 35 to 43 years.
On 25 June 2015, Bayley lodged an appeal against two of the three convictions and the extended non-parole period received in May 2015.
In July 2016, Bayley lodged an appeal against one rape conviction and was a given three-year reduction to his sentence, making him eligible for parole in 2055, aged 83.
Bayley's lawyer told the court that Bayley had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and alcohol dependence. It was also said that he had been physically abused by his father and sexually abused by an older female relative."Bayley on parole when he killed", TheAge.com.au. Accessed 5 December 2022.
Other legal consequences
Social media After Bayley had been charged with rape and murder in September 2012, Facebook users created pages about the case, some of which were openly hostile to Bayley. Victoria Police tried, initially unsuccessfully, to have these pages removed. As a result of the social media response the Premier of Victoria, Ted Baillieu, suggested that law reform might be necessary to avoid social media coverage prejudicing the jury pool.
The role of social media in cases such as Meagher's death remains a matter of concern in legal circles.
Parole laws By late June 2013, there was a substantial tightening of Victoria's parole laws, which came about as the direct result of women such as Meagher being attacked and killed by parolees.It will now be an offence to breach parole, with penalties of up to three months in jail as well as a fine of up to $4200. For example, if parole is breached, then penalties of up to three months imprisonment and a fine of up to $4200 can result. Police can now formally take action if a parolee breaches parole and violent offenders would automatically go back to jail if the breach was a serious one.
Then-Premier of Victoria, Denis Napthine, commented in June 2013: "There is no doubt the system failed Jill Meagher. Under the changes we've already introduced, the offender would have been back in jail, not on the streets. Our actions are the minimum we can do to try and make sure this never ever happens again."
In August 2013, former High Court justice Ian Callinan recommended 23 more changes to the Victorian parole system.
DNA database management In March 2015, the DNA system used by Victoria Police came under criticism. In particular, it is unclear why Bayley's DNA, obtained for sexually assaulting another woman in 2001, was not on the Victoria Police's DNA database.
Other In April 2015, plans by the Victorian Coroner to hold an inquest into Meagher's death were dropped. This was welcomed by the Meagher family, who said they had wanted closure on the matter.
Public reaction The public reaction to Meagher's disappearance and the discovery of her body was immense."As the community marches for Jill Meagher, fears mount for accused's safety", The Australian newspaper, 1 October 2012.
Prison Mass An early indication of the reaction were media reports of 40 prison inmates at the Metropolitan Remand Centre attending a Requiem Mass for Meagher led by the prison's chaplain, Father Joe Caddy, on 28 September. This had happened shortly after Bayley's arrival at the Metropolitan Assessment Prison in Spencer Street, Melbourne.
Reaction by ABC colleagues On 28 September, shortly after the discovery of Meagher's body, an Australian flag and an ABC flag at the Southbank studios were lowered to half-mast for the day.