$200m wasted on the country's most evil
Nearly $200 million in taxpayer funds is being lavished on mass-murderers, gangsters and pedophiles through legal aid.
A former nurse, who caused the deaths of 11 elderly people when he lit two fires at a Sydney nursing home, is using taxpayers’ money to appeal his life sentence for a second time.
Roger Dean's case is one of many appeals NSW Legal Aid is using its $195 million annual government funding to defend, The Daily Telegraph has reported.
Dean failed when he used legal aid lawyers in his first bid last December to cut his jail term, after causing the deaths of residents at the Quakers Hill Nursing Home in western Sydney while they slept, on November 18 2011.
Dean reportedly lit the two fires after he discovered police were investigating his theft of 200 prescription pills from the nursing home.
Described as one of the worst mass murders in the state's history, Dean pleaded guilty to 11 counts of murder on the first day of his trial in May 2013, along with eight counts of grievous bodily harm.
Dean's first attempt to reduce his time behind bars was unanimously dismissed by three NSW Supreme Court judges.
He will now use an estimated $12,000 in government-funded legal aid to appeal the sentence a second time, in the High Court on November 16.
Stephanie Scott's killer Vincent Stanford to appeal life sentence
The news of Dean's appeal comes after legal aid lawyers of the man convicted of raping and murdering NSW school teacher Stephanie Scott last week submitted a notice of intention to appeal his life sentence.
Vincent Stanford was sentenced to life in prison without parole over the murder of the 26-year-old bride-to-be, handed down last month.
In May this year, legal aid funding was used to appeal the 24-year sentence of Underbelly kingpin Anthony Perish, who was jailed in 2012 for the murder and mutilation of drug dealer Terry Falconer.
Falconer's dismembered body was found in the Hastings River on the NSW mid-north coast in 2001. The investigation inspired the TV series Underbelly: Badness.
Perish's attempt in the Court of Criminal Appeal failed.
The Daily Telegraph also revealed taxpayer's money this year to fund failed attempts to appeal the sentences of convicted pedophiles Richard Wright, sentenced for the repeated sexual abuse of a child since she was 12-years-old, and an unidentified man who raped his daughter from age 10.
The families of the victims killed in the Quakers Hill Nursing Home fire are calling for a review on the legal aid grants system.
Sue Webeck's mother Verna was one of those killed. She said said learning the government was paying for Dean to be given a second appeal was “a blow to her soul”.
“It’s a broken system that supports the criminal instead of the victims.
“During the inquest we the victims were given no rights and support ... It breaks my heart that this evil man is being given more money.
"It’s not just this case, but the whole system of funding,” she said.
Donna Austin said it was unjust the man responsible for the death of her 73-year-old mother Alma Smith, is being given another appeal.
"Our loved ones don’t get second chances,” she said.
