Kings Cross brick bashing

[REALJEM]

Kings Cross brick bashing: attempted murder charge dropped against policewoman

Samantha Barlow ... hit with a house brick.

Prosecutors have dropped an attempted murder charge against a man who bashed a Sydney policewoman with a house brick before robbing her and leaving her with serious head injuries.

Samantha Barlow, 35, a sergeant at Kings Cross police station, was on her way to work on May 13 last year when she was attacked by Roderick Holohan.

He hit her with a house brick before stealing a number of items including her wallet, handbag, police badge and work shirt and trousers.

Sergeant Barlow, the mother of two young children, remained in hospital for several days in a critical condition. She is still recovering from serious head injuries.

Holohan, 39, of Sydney, pleaded guilty today to a charge of robbery while armed with an offensive weapon causing wounding/grievous bodily harm.

At the hearing in Sydney's Central Court, prosecutors withdrew the attempted murder charge.

Holohan's solicitor AJ Karim also entered a guilty plea to a charge of assault with intent to rob in relation to an incident at Darlinghurst the night before Sergeant Barlow was attacked.

In that attack, the victim was able to fight him off.

Holohan has been committed for sentence at Sydney's Downing Centre District Court on June 4.

[eagleboy]

THE heroin addict who viciously bashed Samantha Barlow has received a sentence cut - but not because of the brutal attack on the policewoman.

Roderick Holohan appealed against the 21 year sentence he received in the District Court in late 2010 for bashing Ms Barlow with a rock, as well as attacking another woman the night before and stealing from a Wollongong camera store.

Holohan, who admitted to the offences, said he was "desperate for money" when he attacked Ms Barlow as she walked to work in Kings Cross in May 2009.

He argued on appeal that the sentences he received for each charge were "manifestly excessive" and disputed the judge's finding that the attack on Ms Barlow, which left her fighting for her life in hospital, was in the "worst case" category of offences.

He argued that the attack was "less objectively serious" because he had armed himself with a rock instead of a more modern weapon.

"While the weapon may have only been a rock or house brick, it was used with devastating consequences and was obviously capable of causing serious injury," Justice Clifton Hoeben said in his decision, published this morning.

The Court of Criminal Appeal has rejected that submission, but has upheld his claim that the sentence for assaulting Anna Berry was excessive.

He has received an 18 month reduction in his total sentence, from 21 years to 19 and a half, with a new non-parole period of 14 years and three months.

He will now be eligible for parole in November 2023.

Sentence cut for a heroin addict convicted of a brutal attack | thetelegraph.com.au

[Nightwatcher]

I am so tired of hearing about criminals demanding their rights. They are treated better than their victims! Murderers do NOT deserve to have any rights. They don't even deserve to be alive.