Man gets two years for jealousy killing
A man who tried to kill himself after "mercilessly" gunning down his estranged wife's lover has been jailed for two years.
NSW Supreme Court Acting Justice Jane Mathews said Tony James Riley, 48, was no longer the man he had been when he committed the crime.
Riley, a real estate agent of Mudgee in NSW's central west, shattered his skull and had part of his brain removed after shooting himself in the head on Valentine's Day last year.
He was clinically depressed about the breakdown of his marriage and had gone to the Gulgong property of his wife's lover, David Glenn Nichols, armed with a shotgun.
When Mr Nichols, 54, emerged from the home to try to negotiate, Riley shot him in the stomach at point-blank range, before firing a second time at his head.
Both blasts were fatal.
On Friday, acting Justice Mathews jailed Riley for a minimum of two years for Mr Nichols' manslaughter, saying he had already suffered punishment of a "very high order".
After killing Mr Nichols, Riley went to his office and shot himself in the head.
The suicide attempt came after he called his wife and police to say his family would be "better off without him".
Riley had been left "grossly impaired", with limited cognitive abilities and "inappropriately and fatuously cheerful" when he should be anxious or concerned, Acting Justice Mathews said.
He was unable to experience guilt, remorse, anxiety or fear.
Riley's condition was complicated by a lack of insight into his impairment, where "he thinks that he has largely recovered from his brain injury and that his levels of communication, cognition and behaviour are essentially intact", said Acting Justice Mathews.
His affairs have been signed over to his elderly parents by the Guardianship Tribunal, and he will require lifelong supervision and care after his release from prison.
"This was the man who said that he would rather kill himself than have the trauma and indignity of (others) visiting him in prison," Acting Justice Mathews said.
"If that man could see the Tony Riley as he now is, I suspect that he would consider the situation to be literally a fate worse than death."
Directly addressing Mr Nichols' family, the judge acknowledged the sentence may, to them, seem lenient in light of such an "unprovoked and unnecessary attack".
"But I hope you will understand ... that the person who is essentially responsible for your loss ceased to exist when he pulled the trigger on himself," she said.
"The man who has been sitting in court throughout these proceedings will bear the punishment for the deeds of that other man, but it is not he who is primarily responsible for them."
Members of the Nichols family nodded sadly as Acting Justice Mathews explained her decision.
Wearing an eyepatch and with a visible indentation in the left side of his head where his skull had been shattered, Riley displayed no emotion as he was sentenced.
The judge noted Riley's doctor had recommended he not be permitted to have access to guns in 2002, after a suicidal episode.
"Unfortunately, this recommendation was never taken up," she said.
"Had it been, the tragic killing of Mr Nichols might never have happened."
Riley will be eligible for parole in April 2010, with the balance of his maximum five-year term to expire in 2013.
