WA: Cricket bat basher gets five years jail for manslaughter
02 Dec 2008 8:06 PM
PERTH, Dec 2 AAP - A man who struck another man over the head with a cricket bat at a beach last Christmas has been sentenced to five years' jail for manslaughter.
Mathew Roy McDonald, 22, was sentenced in the West Australian Supreme Court on Tuesday over the death of pastoralist William (Bill) John Rowe, 49, last year.
Mr Rowe died in hospital on Boxing Day after McDonald struck him with a cricket bat in the car park of Geraldton's Sunset Beach, in WA's mid-west, when his head struck the ground.
Prosecutors agreed to drop a murder charge after an expert said the blow from the cricket bat alone was not enough to cause Mr Rowe's death.
Justice John McKechnie said it was a spur of the moment decision by McDonald to strike Mr Rowe but violence would not be tolerated and drunkenness was no excuse.
Justice McKechnie also ordered McDonald serve a further nine months in jail for a 2006 unlawful wounding charge for which McDonald had earlier received a suspended sentence.
Mr Rowe's wife Ellen, in her victim impact statement, told the court of the hardship her family faced running the pastoral property since her husband's death.
Ms Rowe also said she had regular counselling and no longer felt safe in public.
McDonald's lawyer Peter Collins said his client had come from a disadvantaged background and had certainly expressed remorse over Mr Rowe's death.
