WA Supreme Court Gives Life Imprisonment To Perth Men For Fatal Bashing Of Gay Man

Daniel Wade Jones and Mark Taylor were sentenced on Friday to life imprisonment after they had been found guilty of killing 48-year-old Warren Batchelor. The convicts were involved in fatal bashing of the gay man in a public toilet in Perth in 2013.

Jones and Taylor were sentenced to life with a 21-year minimum as they were found guilty of murdering Batchelor at the Middle Swan Reserve. They were camping at the Perth reserve when they got angry that gay men were using it for sexual encounters. The Supreme Court heard that Taylor had been accompanied by four of his children.

Batchelor was engaged in a sexual encounter with a man in a toilet when Taylor and Jones reached there. The two Perth men threatened Batchelor and his partner with a knife. While Taylor punched and kicked Batchelor, jones bashed him with a pole.

When Taylor, 43, punched Batchelor in the head; the victim fell to the floor. Jones, 37, continued to beat him with a wooden pole. When the other victim was running away from them, Taylor took out an 18cm long knife and chased him. He called him a “fa**ot and asked him to come back.

The other man did manage to run away from the scene. The victim passed away in a hospital a couple of days later.

The West Australian Supreme Court heard that neither of the attackers expressed any remorse for what they had done. Justice Lindy Jenkins said that the two men had been motivated by “prejudice and hostility.”

While prosecutors argued that it was a vigilante attack to clear the area of gay men, Jenkins refused to believe so. "I don't accept that, but nevertheless I have no doubt you wanted that behaviour to stop ... and warn others away from the reserve," the judge said. She said that the gay men had not done anything to provoke the Perth men who attacked an "unarmed and unsuspecting man."

The judge added that it was possible for Taylor to be concerned about his children getting exposed to sexual activity. However, his actions were "far beyond what might have been expected by a father," she said.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au