THE MEN responsible for one of the region’s worst murders will spend most of their lives behind bars.
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On Friday, a Supreme Court Judge sentenced the second man found guilty of killing 14-year-old autistic teenager Timmy O’Brien, ending a two-year wait for the boy’s heartbroken family.
Joel Parker Henderson, 42, will join axe murderer Darren Wilson, 37, behind bars for a minimum of 20 years over the 2013 murder.
Describing the actions of Henderson and his co-offender Wilson as “heinous”, Justice Bernard Bongiorno said it was clear the sentence “must” be a heavy one.
In his delivery, Justice Bongiorno used the words “appalling” to describe the incident that occurred in the early hours of January 5, 2013.
Justice Bongiorno touched on, and agreed with, the submission made by Henderson’s defence counsel that an acquired brain injury was partly responsible, but said “I’m unable to accept … your participation in Timothy O’Brien’s death should be characterised as less heinous than that of your co-offender”.
“You clearly assented to Wilson using the axe you had provided to attack Timmy, which assent was in the context of you having already assaulted Timmy with the axe and expressed your view he should die.
“...Timmy was in need of protection because of his disability, of which you are made aware, simply adds to the heinousness of your conduct.”
Reading from reports tendered during a pre-sentence hearing last Friday, one of what said “careful consideration would need to be given as to how dangerous (Henderson) may be in a community setting”, Justice Bongiorno said the protection of the community would also be taken into consideration during sentencing.
“Whilst you may be able to claim a diminution in your moral culpability for Timmy’s death, your legal responsibility is not diminished by your psychological state,” he said.
“It was not suggested at trial that you did not know what you were doing at the time of Timmy’s death or that what you were doing was wrong.
“Whilst it is appropriate that your apparent mental state at the time of the offence be taken into account as diminishing your moral responsibility, however there are other serious factors which tilt the scales in the opposite direction.”
Also taking into the account the victim impact statement’s of Timmy’s family, Justice Bongiorno sentenced Henderson to 24 years imprisonment with a non-parole period of 20 years.
“They have each suffered in their own way … Timmy’s mother and sister both miss him which is expected,” he said.
“Timothy’s step father misses him as a companion and as a work mate.”
On January 5, 2013, the Ballarat community woke to the shocking news of one of the worst examples of murder in the region’s history.
It wasn’t Timmy who was the planned victim of the murder, but Timmy’s step father Peter Williams – Wilson’s cousin.
The two men’s relationship was at that stage on less than friendly terms and for some time Wilson had been planning to hurt his cousin.
That plan was to lure Williams to a house at Scarsdale and “give him a flogging”.
A 16-year-old girl living at the house, who at the time Wilson considered his girlfriend, and two others drove to Williams’ house and, telling him there were prowlers at their house, convinced Williams to go there.
Unfortunately, Timmy insisted on accompanying him and became that person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Williams and Timmy arrived at the house not knowing Wilson was hiding with a pillow case over his head and Henderson was there with an axe.
Ready to bash his cousin, Wilson jumped out from a room and began bashing Mr Williams. It was at this moment Timmy made a decision to help defend his stepfather.
Armed with a baseball bat, Timmy struck Wilson and then Henderson before being chased outside.
Defenceless and on the ground, Timmy was hit in the head by Henderson with the blunt end of the axe, despite protests by onlookers.
Also coming outside, Wilson began punching Timmy. Wilson then picked up the axe, flipped it to its bladed side and struck the boy in the head while Henderson, a father of four himself, did nothing to stop him.
Both men left Timmy on the ground, with his severed finger laying next to him.
Earlier this year, convicted axe murderer Darren Wilson was sentenced to spend the next 30 years and six months behind bars with a non-parole period of 26 years, after a jury found him guilty of murdering Timmy on January 5, 2013.
Wilson, who maintained his innocence throughout the trial and told police it was Henderson’s idea, murdered Timmy by striking him repeatedly to the head with an axe, soon after Henderson had initiated the attack.
During sentencing, Justice Betty King told Wilson there was very little his counsel could have said in respect of his offending.
In her delivery, she said she recognised how devastating the loss of Timmy had been felt by his family.
“I am sure that they are as aware as I am that nothing that I impose in the way of sentence upon you will ever bring their little boy back into their lives,” she said.
Describing Timmy’s injuries as “catastrophic”, she said she accepted Wilson’s intellectual impairment had a part to play in his offending, saying “if you were not a person with such a dull intellect, you may not be so impulsive”.
“There are times I struggle to understand the inhumanity of man towards man and this is one of those times. Your actions in taking an axe to the head of a disabled child, who was already hurt, weeping and lying unresisting in the grass outside the house, because he had come to the aid of his stepfather and stopped an unprovoked attack upon that man by you, does truly beggar belief,” she said.
Wilson was also found guilty of incitement to murder key witnesses Lisa Trezise and Peter Williams.
Lisa Trezise, who drove the pair to and from the scene, was last year sentenced to spend 21 months in jail, but that term was wholly suspended.
