Boat owner fined in Carlino murder case
A Dianella bricklayer who lied to police about lending his boat to murderer Aaron Carlino, who used the vessel to dump the dismembered remains of Stephen Cookson in the ocean, has been fined $1500.
Thomas Christopher Mailey was sentenced in the District Court in Perth this afternoon after pleading guilty to one count of attempting to obstruct the police investigation into Carlino.
Carlino was convicted by a Supreme Court jury of murdering Cookson and sentenced in October to a life jail term with a minimum of 23 years.
Carlino shot Cookson twice in the head as he slept in the Hay Street apartment shared by the men on December 15, 2012.
Carlino then dismembered and beheaded his former mentor's body and buried the remains in a shallow grave. He later exhumed Cookson's remains and on December 23, borrowed Mailey's aluminium boat on the pretext of wanting to go fishing.
Unbeknown to Mailey, he wanted the boat to dispose of Cookson's body.
Cookson's head was found washed up on a beach on Rottnest Island on January 6 last year.
This afternoon, District Court Judge Allan Fenbury said he accepted Mailey had panicked when he was questioned by police on January 29 and repeatedly denied that he had lent the boat to Carlino.
Judge Fenbury said attempting to obstruct a murder investigation was a grave offence.
He said Mailey had committed a serious example of the offence, but the police had not been fooled by his lies and it was unpremeditated and brief.
