https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/borce-ristevski-appeal-over...Remorseless wife killer Borce Ristevski will spend four years longer behind bars after appeal judges declared his sentence inadequate.
Ristevski, 55, remained silent and stared ahead on the video link as the decision was handed down in the Court of Appeal this morning.
His daughter Sarah, sitting in the back row of the court, showed no emotion as she learnt her father would not see freedom until late 2027.
All three judges agreed Ristevski deserved a tougher penalty for killing his wife Karen at their Avondale Heights home in June 2016, setting aside his nine-year jail term.
But they could not agree on what he should be resentenced to, with a 2-1 majority setting the new sentence at 13 years, with a non-parole period of 10 years.
Justice Priest said he would have set a 12-year term with a chance of parole after nine years.
Justice Anne Ferguson said because Ristevski had not shown “one scintilla” of remorse, they could not take remorse into account as a mitigating factor.
She said there were no other cases like it, but the fact the killing took place in a domestic setting was an aggravating feature.
Justice Ferguson and Justice Simon Whelan observed Ristevski “did not simply maintain his right to silence, but took immediate positive steps to avoid his crime being discovered”.
Justice Priest said “it could be inferred that Mr Ristevski must have thought that the circumstances of the killing were sufficiently serious to warrant disposing of his wife’s body to conceal how she died”.
He considered the nine-year sentence to be “inadequate to reflect the seriousness of the offending”.
In the hearing, which lasted just 12 minutes, Karen’s brother Stephen Williams embraced with his son as he learnt his sister’s killer would be locked up for longer.
Outside court, while happy his sister’s killer would be caged for longer, Mr Williams said justice will never be served.
“It’s as good as a result then we could have got,” he said.
“I wanted capital punishment to be brought back in but that was never going to happen.”
Mr Williams said he believed Ristevski would take to his grave the circumstances of the killing.
He hoped they would now be able to “start moving on”.
Ristevski kept up the pretence that his wife had gone for a walk to clear her head after a disagreement for months after he killed her, appearing with their daughter Sarah in the days afterwards to publicly appeal for help finding her.
By then, he had already disposed of her in the bush, with her body not found until the following February, at a spot northwest of Melbourne just off the Calder Freeway.
The prosecution has argued sentencing judge Christopher Beale did not give sufficient weight to Ristevski’s silence over the killing, and his endless lies to lead police off his trail.
not enough imo....if we weigh up how many years of life he stole from his wife..with no remorse whatever....
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