A teenager who stabbed a British mother to death in Australia after breaking into her home will be eligible for early release after successfully appealing against his sentence.
Emma Lovell was killed in North Lakes, Queensland, on Boxing Day in 2022 while fending off two intruders with her husband.
The 41-year-old mother of two died of a single stab wound to the heart.
She had emigrated to Australia from Ipswich in 2011 with her husband Lee, who survived the attack, along with their daughters.
Her attacker, who was 17 at the time and cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to her murder last year and was jailed for 14 years, with 70% of the sentence to be served before being eligible for supervised release.
He launched an appeal against the sentence, arguing it was “manifestly excessive”. Three judges at Queensland Court of Appeal on Friday reduced the period the killer must spend in jail to 60%.
The judges agreed that the man’s guilty plea, his expressed remorse, and his prospects for rehabilitation warranted cutting his sentence.
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He will now be eligible for release after serving eight years and five months in prison, a reduction of 17 months.
Justice Tom Sullivan, who handed down the sentence at Brisbane’s Supreme Court in May last year, told the man he had committed a “particularly heinous offence” after breaking into the Lovells’ property armed with a knife alongside another boy.
The court heard the teenage killer had been convicted of 84 offences since he was 15, including 16 involving unlawful entry or attempted entry of properties, but none had been violent.
He had been placed on a probation order three times, but had not previously been ordered to serve detention.
The boy turned to alcohol and drugs after the death of his grandmother when he was 14, the court was told.
The judge said he had taken into account the teenager’s childhood of “deprivation” but also had to consider “the seriousness of the offending”.
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The judge described Ms Lovell as “an energetic and beloved mother, wife, daughter and sister”.
He added: “The Lovells were ordinary citizens enjoying their family life in their home, where they were entitled to feel safe. What occurred on that Boxing Day evening violated that entirely.”
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The then 19-year-old defendant had also pleaded guilty to burglary, malicious acts with intent and assault occasioning bodily harm over an attack on Mr Lovell.
The second teenager involved in the burglary, who also cannot be named as he was 17 at the time, was found guilty of burglary and assault. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail, with the time he spent in detention before sentencing counting as time served.
