From: AAP | September 20, 2012 4:15PM
EDS: Changing keyword from Acid
SYDNEY, Sept 20 AAP - A man who was jailed for at least six years for
his part in a bashing and chemical attack on two Sri Lankan students in
Sydney's west has lost his appeal against the sentence.
Amalatheepan Srikantharajah, 28, was sentenced to a maximum 10 years in
jail with a non-parole period of six years in December 2010 for two offences of
aggravated break, enter and commit serious indictable offence.
The court found Srikantharajah had been part of a group of men, armed
with cricket stumps, steel bars, a knife and a bottle of caustic soda, who had
broken into the home of two students at Westmead in May 2009.
The attack occurred on the same day that Tamil and Sinhalese ethnic
groups clashed outside Westmead railway station after Sri Lankan government
forces claimed victory over Tamil rebels in the island nation's lengthy civil
war.
During the Westmead attack, the two victims had holed up inside a
bedroom when a member of the group poured corrosive liquid sodium hydroxide
through a hole in the door, onto the two men.
One of the victims had to be placed in a medically induced coma due to
severe burning to his right eye and mild burning to his left eye, burns to his
throat and tongue, and other facial scarring.
In his sentencing in the District Court in 2010, Judge Martin Langford
Sides accepted that while Srikantharajah had no prior knowledge that chemicals
were being brought to the attack, he had participated in the bashing of the
victims.
In an appeal on the severity of his sentence before the Court of
Criminal Appeal, Srikantharajah claimed his "significant mental illness at
the time of the offences" principally induced by alcohol, were not taken
into account during sentencing.
But on Thursday, the appeal was dismissed for a number of reasons, among
them because the appeal "did not establish definitively that he suffered
from a significant mental illness, or that there was a mental condition that
was of a long-term nature beyond dependence upon alcohol."
"The harm, both physical and psychological, occasioned to both
victims was substantial," Justice Robert Hulme told the court.
