Who's To Blame?In this final episode, we pose that question to Lee Lovell, Aarron Anderson, his wife Christine, and someone who helps rehabilitate youth offenders. Their answers might spark a new conversation.
Approche production.
This is the final episode of Who's to Blame Now. We set out from the start to try and show you all the different aspects to what a complex issue youth crime is. We've heard from offenders and victims and the people that are trying to solve the problem. We never set out to give the answer to the question, but we also know depending on where you sit in the community, everyone has a very different view. We're getting close to an election in Queensland, so every party has their solution to the problem and a campaign to match. From the outset, we decided not to try and make this political, but more to give you multiviewpoints on how to make your own decisions. However, we won't shy away from the recent stats around Queensland juveniles who breached bail and we're given a slap on the wrists from courts. Recent data said that sixteen yews were sentenced for breaching bail from March to June of twenty two three. The most common penalty was a reprimand in twelve cases, followed by a good behavior bond in three cases at a court diversional referral in one case. We've heard from Lee Lovell that one of his offenders was out on bail when he killed Lee's wife, Emma. One of the boys that was in Lee's house that night has still not been sentenced. However, one has and that happened on Lee's birthday this year in twenty twenty four.
Yeah, so I suppose, like leading up to that, I've had like a couple of meetings with the DPP and they because under Queensland law, like the maximum sentence for them because unfortunately they committed the defense when they were a youth, you know, not technically an adult, was like ten years.
But actually then.
Initially weren't going to go for a heinous crime verdict, but they turned round to me eventually said that, you know, we are going to do go for it a heinous crime verdict. You know, I suppose I was pleased that they were going to at least a try for the heinous crime because I knew that then potentially we could get more than ten years. But like within the first hearing, like because the DPP were just trying to get a because I suppose, in to a certain extent in our case was pretty unique about what happened. So then they were trying to find a comparable case to go against, and there was another case there where within that one there was some three people who got in an elderly couple's house during the day. The old guy was like stad once by a sixteen year old girl. And within that case that person had got like fourteen years. So I remember the judge saying to the prosecutor, like, you know, so if you are successful with a hangless crime verdict, what do you think would be the length of sentence you want? And he was like, well, based on each other case, then I think like for fourteen years. So when it came to judge handing down it like at the time, that's that's what they went with and gave like fourteen years.
Fighting back tears outside the Supreme Court a day after Mother's Day and on his birthday, he was not here.
It's not going to bring it back. It would have been a very different day. Was here.
Lee Lovell and his daughters have waited almost two years for justice and today it was served Justice Sullivan, exercising his power to sentence are now nineteen year old to fourteen years behind bars for stabbing North Lake's mum, Emma Lovell during a home invasion on Boxing Day twenty twenty two, when they said.
They're going to get hainous crime, everyone was like yeah, great, and I'm like, oh, we're not for a life sentence, and then then he was like sort of fourteen years. I just wo, why are you just give them fourteen years? So then afterwards I hied, I've since tried appealing the case or the sentence, but the DPP won't do nothing about it. The sentence or got fourteen years is at its level, the judge has done nothing wrong. There's nothing really to appeal, so they won't do anything about it, you know. So for me, there's got to be a criterion that's met us, as you could say, or something's gone wrong for me to be allowed to appeal it. But you know, the guilty guy, he's allowed to appeal it, which I think is like grossly unfair that, you know, I tried saying to the DVP, like has there been a youth that's got a life sentence? You know, like yeah, but there was like more brutality or more planning or something or within that, like maybe they actually planned to.
Go and kill someone. I suppose What gets me is that, like, you know, this is my life.
This is like Emma's life, and to me, like justice has not been reserved for fourteen years. Like you know, maybe if they had have said like eighteen years, I would have walked away and not said anything else about it. But I just don't think it's fair. You know, the guy wasn't thirteen, it wasn't fourteen. He was like four months away from being at eighteen. Like my kids are like now you know, borderline fifteen or seventeen. But I think in Queensland, if I want to get their medical records after fourteen, as a parent, I'm not allowed to get it because I don't know, maybe the government sees them as an adult.
You know, I'm not allowed to touch them.
Like if at sixteen you want to go and see a like a priest or something and say you want to get married at sixteen, I'm pretty sure you can go and do it. If you prove you're responsible enough to get married at sixteen, you can do it. But like any I as a law when it comes to like a murder case, like oh for some reason like seventeen, Like no, you're still a youth at that point. You know, you're not an adult. It's like, well, how else is he going to grow in four months? Like what's going to change for him in four months that you're going to say that. I don't know when it was all these years ago that someone decided that, like an eighteen you're then legally an adult.
Like, like I said, I just don't think it's fair.
I don't because it's not fourteen years, like you know, he's only got to do seventy percent, which takes it down to nine years.
And then because he's been.
Locked up at the time for five hundred and three days, you know, he's going to be out in October thirty thirty two. And to me, like, that's not good enough. How can someone be out at like, you know, twenty seven or whatever.
And I have to live their.
Lives and carry on, and the girls and I have still got to suffer with them not being here, and it's just not justice.
I guess when we spoke on the phone, one of the things that run true for me is she said he did an adult crime.
He should serve that old time.
Yeah, yeah, I do agree with that, and I'm not going to change my view on that, But I don't want this to get cleary or not massively into politics. But I do think that, like, if you're going to start murdering people, then you should be treated as an adult.
Remember one of the Yeths that killed Emma also attacked Aaron and his wife Christine, just one year before.
I'm ultimately sure and the better people better place in million experts in youth justice and how the legislation ought to be applied by judges. But I felt some sense that maybe that's a shift in the judicial system to finally get some of these outcomes right.
I mean, I think for me, you've taken someone's life fourteen years doesn't seem enough. I get that they use but clearly lessons had not been learned from our incident, and the judge was obviously constrained by the legal framework and what the statute allows. But I think, you know, certainly the sentences should be able to be higher, like the legislative framework I think needs to be changed, particularly in this circumstance where this individual had so many prize that and one with you know, involving us, which you know, a millimeter the surgeon said to you, a millimeter in a different direction, your outcome or our outcome would have been vastly different. So fourteen in that context, fourteen years is not enough. In the context of the regime the judge was dealing with, fourteen years was you know, pretty much as serious as you can get, but it's still not enough.
Yeah, And look, I think I was thinking about the slap on the wrist they got for us, you know, so it's a big difference. So now it's a different charge, but the slap on the wrist, and suddenly we've got a charge now saying fourteen years for you know, a youth offender.
I don't know.
I thought, at least something's moving the right direction.
Maybe one of the things that keeps coming back to me, and certainly in all the conversations I'm having, is that along the way, the eighty three times before he killed Emma, there would have been opportunities for intervention, and yours was possibly one of the last opportunities, the true intervention where a decision on more than unlawful wounding could have changed an outcome for someone else.
I mean, I think the penalties just need to be tougher, But also query whether you know some of these youths who are from difficult backgrounds are getting the support that they need to be able to change. But I think it needs to go hand in hand because you can't have an individual committing eighty four or eighty three offenses until they actually, you know, kill someone. I mean, that's horrendous.
Yeah, I'm just a little bit fed up with the reactive approach to these sorts of issues. I think the judges.
Doing all they can.
Was very, very impressed with the judge who with the offending of the individual we're talking about. I thought that she didn't the best she could within the frame within she's working as a judge to sentence and convict that offender, having regard to the fact that charge was downgraded by the DPP. And I'm not blaming anyone there either, But as Christine just said, and I didn't realize the rap sheet was that long, how possibly does someone get through a rap sheet that long and it gets to a point in time where someone like how a lover was killed before then suddenly there's a bit of noise about, well, let's put in place ten point plans and change legislation and do other things. It's just been too slow, ineffective. I don't have the solutions. But if you're talking about who's to blame. You know, I feel that we're talking about a youth crisis. So we're talking about people who are engaging in this sort of conduct from very young age of even less than being teenagers. Right, So where's the most impactful point in someone's life at that stage that programs or intervention mechanisms can be thought through and put in place, and really the biggest person government The mechanism is education and schooling. Except that a lot of these young offenders have had very, very difficult upbringings. But we're in the so called lucky country, right, We've got the mechanisms to support people and to do something other than allow someone to go before a court and have eighty two offenses before the community is protected. I mean, one of the things about youth's right, you know, there's no recording of these convictions. They have a rap sheet, they remain unrecorded, so you know that has an impact on subsequent sentencing processes. You know, for any adult who engages in those sorts of crimes and has a rap sheet that long, they'll definitely have recorded convictions and they simply won't get away with it and be able to sort of get to eighty two before whatever the number is before the eighty third one is at death. I suspect there's many mechanism within the legal system that can be adjusted so that that sort of scenario never happens again. But it's complex. I don't have all of the solutions, but there's sort surely got to be if we invested time in understanding worldwide, what's what are other governments, what other countries doing, what are people doing that ultimately results in an effective outcome or at least reduces crime rates at least it protects the community a little better than we're doing now. We need to be looking at it and understanding whether that's something that here in Queensland, here in Australia might be effective to prevent the outcome that we're experiencing, the outcomeing mlevels experienced.
So what needs to change in Lee's mind to help fix this use crime issue?
For me, Like, I don't, I don't think I think the ten year maximum sentence should be scrapped. I think that like that's that's at the moment that legislation is hindering the justice system from dishing out harsher sentences. You know, I think personally like the way they should do it is like they should maybe it's not just up to a judge.
Maybe they should have a group of people.
Defining a sentence length, like I understand, like maybe if you're like sort of thirteen or fourteen, or maybe you stab someone, but maybe it's like self defense, you know, like maybe you're running away from someone or I don't know, like in that scenario, then maybe maybe it should be less of a sentence. But like if you're like you know, borderline eighteen and you're breaking into people's houses at nighttime with a knife, then I don't believe you.
Should be getting ten years.
I think that there should be more percentence for that, you know, and I think it should be like a sliding scan in between, like what why can it not be?
But you know, it's not just us.
There's like there's there's like plenty of people out there, like the like Matt Fields and Kate Lett that are like, you know, the person involved in their case got did you get like eight years or something? I'm not too sure on that, but he got like, you know, it would never been not less than more than ten. It's like Angus Beaumont, you know, I feel so sorry for it for his parents, you know, Michelle and Ben, you know them, they got like eight years or something. I think the other one's due to be released in like eighty months time or something from murdering Angus back in like twenty twenty. And it's just it's discussing like how people are getting away with that. Then you know there's other people out there as well that we're suffering with this, and you know, and even with like the Cathin you know, in their case, I understand they didn't murder someone, but they got like seven and eight years and then they've only got to do fifty percent of that. And then the judges turned around and said, well the conviction's not to be recorded after eighteen. It's like, are you living on planet Earth here? Like why are people not being held accountable, you know, for what they're doing? Like as much as like the government can change things, but ultimately, I suppose to a certain it comes down to the.
Judges to enforce these rules as well.
You know, So if they're not the ones, you know, to change things, how is it ever going to change? But you know, in the UK, like there's been a couple of instances really when like teams have murdered people and they're getting like twenty two years minimums that the judges aren't release see the names of these people because it's like apparently like in the public interest, like why are we not doing that here? Like you know, and this is what angers me, like, you know, because the courier mail, I don't know where they found these people. They've done a thing the other day where they queried people like, oh do you agree with like the LMP slogan about adult chrome abu out time and they're like, oh, no, definitely not should be doing that, you know, it doesn't work or whatever. I'm guessing all those people did not or have not suffered any you know, you know, crimes to their families. And you know, maybe if this wouldn't have happened to us, maybe I would be in agreement with that. After losing my wife and the kids losing their mum and like being a bit to like I just can't get on board with what's happening nowadays. You know, you know a lot of people would not agree with my views, but I just think people need to be locked up.
I'm not saying everyone.
I understand there's a varying degrees of crimes being happening, from people breaking the people's houses or.
Cars being stolen.
I'm not saying everyone should be locked up for their whole their life and get me wrong, but those core crimes like murder and people need to be locked up for that, and I'm not going to change my.
View on that.
Same On purpose we call this podcast Who's to Blame? It was deliberate. What we've learned across the last forty hours of interviews and discussions is that the answer to that question who's to blame is more complicated than the simplicity of the word blame. Will Smith, who runs a successful youth reform and development program in Tasmania, has his own view.
Who's to blame my honest opinion, not the police, not government services, not the young people. I go back to our puzzle piece analogy. You know, I think everyone plays a role. I think technology is a massive contributor to the way that young people are being brought up at the moment, we're talking social media, social media, screen time, you know, the content absorption of young people across various platforms that's a segment of and community values. I just think that the community values have changed a lot.
You know.
It's where we're so accustomed these days to seeing a young person in need and stepping back as opposed to stepping forward. A lot of the issues that could be affected proactively with a lot of young people were identified many years ago, before they stabbed people, before they broke into a home, before they broke into a car. But we turned our blind eye. We turned the blind eye when they were at school and got suspended for the first time. We turned the blind eye when we saw the neighbors arguing and yelling and just thought that it wasn't our business. We turned the blind eye where we saw the kid walking down the street with no shoes on and just thought, oh, oh, that's horrible. I'll tell my friends at dinner tonight. We just I feel like we're just living in a community at the moment where we just were not taking responsibility for our young people. Very quick to off shift the blame, very quick to criticize, but no one's willing to actually step up and take responsibility. And when community values change, community outcomes change. And I think that's a massive contributor. I think there are plenty of gaps in legislative provision. I think there are plenty of gaps in bail processes. I think there are plenty of gaps in you know, child safety protection service provisions as well. But those gaps are going to We don't live in a perfect system. I mean, thank god we even have them in place, because many countries don't. It's very quick to point out the gaps. We're not quick to look within and go you know this whole retrig Well, we work in the Middle East a lot, I mean the Middle East, you know, there receivitism rates for young people almost don't exist. Yeah, young people are disengaged and they commit crime and are involved in you know, stuff they shouldn't be. But receivitism doesn't exist because the community steps forward. There's no police don't step forward. You know, there are no service there's no child protection over there, there's no youth justice. The community steps in. We all play a role in taking care of our young people. And I just think here in Australia, for some reason, people are just continually stepping back from the role that we all play. When community values drop, community outcomes drop, and I think that's the biggest issue that we've got at the moment. We all identified that young person early, but no one did anything about it. So now we're at the peak end of the system where unfortunately people are dying, communities are unsafe. We all want to stand up and blame someone, but we don't want to take responsibility for the fact that we know over the last ten years, never went and contributed to a youth program, didn't knock on a neighbor's door and offer assistance, didn't invite a young person around for dinner and help attribute values. While dad was in prison or mum was sick in hospital. We noticed that new family moving down the street, and they come from a refugee background, or they come from a low associate economic community, but we didn't invite them around for the community barbecue, or we didn't ask if they had someone to spend lunch with it Christmas, all of those things. We're just I feel like we're just becoming so disconnected from each other, and the people that will suffer are the young people. And when young people suffer, the community will suffer.
So I just feel like at the.
Moment, the outcomes that the community are getting are the outcomes that the community is attributed. By stepping back years and years ago, yeah, open your arms. These young people are lovable, They're very likable, beautiful humans. They've got so much potential. And from a bloke that, just to be honest, hates working with kids, and I just, you know, I just have passion in a lot of other areas, but I just feel that this.
Is my calling.
I just have to do this at the moment. I just, yeah, I just want to shake some people at times. And you know, can't work with this young person they're two impossible, is too hard. You've got to give up on them. Yeah, well you didn't have to give up ten years ago when they really needed it. So yeah, Unfortunately, now the community pays for it. And it's horrible because these young people are committing terrific crimes.
I do also understand that, like you know, youth crime or like youth in general, like it is a big issue, and maybe there's a lot of people out there that do need support. But I think also it's not just those individual people, but I feel that maybe that like families need support as well, Like you know, if.
You don't know how to be a parent, or.
You know, you can't cook a meal or something, or you don't know how to be a parent, you know, you don't know how to teach respect them to kids, that they should be more intense support for people, you know, and then probably we wouldn't end up in these situations where we are at the moment, Like I.
Want to leave the final words of this podcast to lead level. Lee got the chance to tell one of the youths that was charged with murder how it's impacted him at his family.
I was asked if I want the right one, and I decided that I would. In some ways it came pretty easy, but you know, you just start somewhere and then add to it. And I got one of my friends sort of you know, cast eyes high over it, and you sort of mentioned a couple of things. So I didn't added to it, you know, And I didn't think I would be strong enough to read it in court that they asked me beforehand, you know, whether I was going to it, and I was like, let's do it, you know, let's be strong enough forever to do that, you know. Own I thought maybe you would have more of an impact if I read that out rather than someone else, So yeah, I did. I suppose I just try to drown everyone else out and just focus on what I needed to read and read it out, and I hope I just got my point across that how much she meant to us and the kids, and you know, yeah, and my brother done a victim impact statement as well, and yeah, it was it was really hard listening to that. He it was very touching what he wrote and that, you know, so don't think again, I think he just got his point across about how much hour meant to him and his family and our family that you don't even Yeah, the person involved in our case, like his mum obviously did not care.
Like dad was pretty.
Abusive, and I'm not using it as an excuse, but he then went to live with like aunties or something or aren't you an uncle with like twelve other you know, cousins around or whatever. And then he was then obviously because he was in committing some crimes, but he had to do you know, what do you call.
It, like like an hour or a week.
With some support group or something, which is obviously wasn't enough, you know, And I want to see him.
I'm sticking up for him because I'm not.
But I can sort of see why people end up the way they do because of just that lack of support from at least a father figure. You know, you don't have to have a dad in your life, as long as you've got the father figure. It can even be worse case, like a good tea shirt that can help guide you and put you on the right track. People need to have good role models or parents around them to help keep on the straight and narrow, you know. So, I don't know, I just think there should be more support out there for people like that need it, really as a core fact before we then start getting into longer sentence that you know, you're always going to get people commit crimes.
I don't think you're ever going to get away from that.
But like if you can just help people from a younger age, you know, like maybe they can be identified or whatever, then maybe.
They can help be supported and you know, guided better.
Like maybe they do need to be taken away from their parents if that's the case, but put with support people, foster people, that's actually going to help these kids out. Like it's such a complex issue, Like it's not just a one size fits all, like response is the answer to what we're dealing with at the moment. I understand that, you know, but I understand people need help, but I also can't get away from people being locked up. If you're murdering people, you just in my view and I'll never change that. You've got to be punished for that, so
