Quakers Hill Nursing Home mass murderer Roger Dean loses High Court appeal bid
Updated
Sydney nursing home mass murderer Roger Dean has lost his bid to challenge his life sentence in the High Court.
The former nurse murdered 11 elderly residents of a western Sydney nursing home by setting fire to the facility as they slept on November 18, 2011.
He pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court 18 months later, on what was to have been the first day of his murder trial.
He was subsequently given 11 life sentences.
He launched an appeal in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal last year, but it was unanimously dismissed last December.
On Wednesday, two judges, sitting in Sydney, refused to give him the go-ahead, concluding there would be no prospects that an appeal would be successful.
Dean lit at least two fires in different sections of the Quakers Hill Nursing Home in a bid to hide his theft of painkillers from the facility.
As firefighters tried desperately to locate one of the blazes, Dean went back into the home to retrieve the drug register books that revealed his crime.
Under NSW law, he is likely to die in jail.
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Quakers Hill Nursing Home murderer Roger Dean loses appeal against 11 life sentences
As firefighters tried desperately to locate one of the blazes, the nurse went back into the home to retrieve the drug register books that revealed his crime.
Dean pleaded guilty 18 months later, on what was to have been the first day of his murder trial, and was subsequently given 11 life sentences by Supreme Court Justice Megan Latham.
But the 39-year-old subsequently argued in the Court of Criminal Appeal that Justice Latham was wrong in finding that no sentence other than life in prison would adequately reflect his moral culpability, and that imposing such sentences was "manifestly excessive".
Crucial to his case, made by Sydney barrister Tim Game, SC, was Dean's state of mind at the time he lit the fires and the degree to which he could have foreseen what would happen as a result.
Mr Game said the judge had erred in finding that it was "more probable than not" that lighting the fire in the nursing home would result in really serious injury or death.
He said Justice Latham should have found that there was no more than "a real chance" that this might happen, and so reducing Dean's moral culpability.
"I'm being finickity about language but it's essential in this context," Mr Game said.
He also argued that Justice Latham had failed properly to consider the evidence of forensic psychiatrist Dr Michael Diamond, who found that Dean's long-term drug addiction and personality disorders had affected his decision making.
Finally, he argued that the structure of the judge's legal reasoning had been flawed because it involved separating the question of Dean's moral culpability from consideration of the "objective seriousness" of the crime.
But the judges rejected each of the appeal grounds, finding that Justice Latham had not erred "in assessing Dean's level of moral culpability by reference to his having foreseen that there was a real chance of a number of deaths when he lit the fires".
They also found that there had been "no error" in the way Justice Latham treated the evidence regarding Dean's mental condition.
After the judgment, the son of fire victim Emmanuela Cachia said the decision was a relief.
"It was dismissed but it doesn't bring our loved ones back," Paul Cachia told Fairfax Media.
"This should never ever have gone this far. Dean just doesn't care about life ... The only thing he's done here is to waste taxpayers' money."
"Those three judges are up there because they're pretty brainy. They came up with the right decision."
Clare Blanch from the Homicide Victims' Support Group said the other members of the victims' families had also expressed relief.
"The grief never goes away, but at least now the relatives won't have to go through the trauma of a parole hearing," Ms Blanch said.
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