The release of ‘Granny Killer’, Anthony Lauritsen, represents a shocking dereliction of duty by Attorney General John Quigley, for the safety of our community and with callous disregard for Lauritsen’s family who are left reeling and fearful,” said Shadow Attorney General, Nick Goiran.
Lauritsen’s premeditated and sadistic murder of his own grandmother and her pet in 1998, was deemed by his own lawyer to be on the highest end of brutality.
Now due for release from prison, the Attorney General John Quigley has tried to justify his decision by stating that Mr Lauritsen has been assessed as “a low risk of re-offending”.
“The judge determined that this offender should be sentenced to life in prison and yet he is now being released because he is ‘low risk’. This is cold comfort to a family who deserves to be protected and a community left in fear,” stated Nick Goiran.
“I am appalled by the Attorney General’s entirely inadequate reasons for Mr Lauritsen’s release,” Nick Goiran said “Anthony Lauritsen conducted a very calculated, cold-blooded murder, attempted decapitation, and disembowelment of his own grandmother. Under his own admission, Lauritsen said he planned to kill more people.”
“We absolutely need to question why the offender’s desire for a privilege has trumped the rights of the victims and the community to safety?”
Nick Goiran also questioned Mr Quigley’s selective interference into justice matters, when last year, the Attorney General intervened in an unfair dismissal case where the applicant worker was seeking that her former boss Roger Cook be summoned as a witness.
“Attorney General, John Quigley was quite happy to jump in and protect his friend Roger Cook from having to testify in an unfair dismissal case, yet when cruel ruthless offenders are being released from prison, he effectively just shrugs his shoulders”, said Nick Goiran.
“It appears that the prospect of the Deputy Premier facing uncomfortable questions about the sacking of this staffer is a greater priority warranting Mr Quigley’s intervention, than the release of a heinous murderer.”
“If the Premier was hoping the Attorney General’s recent staggering incompetence in court would be quickly forgotten, then this latest decision has done the precise opposite.”
