A Western Australian magistrate has refused to jail a woman for assaulting police on the night she was bashed by her partner – who several hours later abducted and murdered her baby – saying: “I just can’t jail her with what she’s gone though.”
Magistrate Stephen Sharratt was tasked with sentencing Tamica Anne Mullaley in the Broome magistrates court on Thursday, after she was found guilty in September of two counts of assaulting a public officer and one count of obstructing public officers. She was also convicted for a string of other offences, including stealing and other assault charges, in the months following.
According to a report by the ABC, Sharratt said he could not ignore the physical and emotional trauma Mullaley went through that night and in the time since.
“What happened to her made a great deal of difference to the way she reacted to their [the police] presence,” he said. “Those wounds would have killed her without medical intervention.”
He said Mullaley spent several months in hospital as a result of the assault and had “gone understandably awry” as a result of that and the death of her son.
“If ever there was a time for the court to be merciful, it’s this matter today,” he said.
Police were called to Broome to assist 28-year-old Mullaley on March 19, 2013, after she had been severely assaulted by her abusive partner, Mervyn Bell.
The assault left her with a broken collarbone, broken ribs and a badly damaged spleen and kidney. Describing the assault at the murder trial for her son last year, Mullaley said, “He bashed the shit out of me.”
When police arrived she was wearing nothing but a bloody sheet, having been stripped naked and left on the side of the road by Bell. She kicked one officer in the chest and spat at another.
While she was in hospital that night, her son was taken by Bell. He endured 15 hours of abuse and was driven 1,000km away to Fortescue River Roadhouse. The baby later died in hospital, in what a supreme court judge last year called one of the most “evil” crimes he had ever encountered.
Bell, 27, was sentenced to life imprisonment in December for the rape and murder of her 10-month-old son, Charlie, and later pleaded guilty to assaulting Mullaley. He lodged an appeal against the severity of his sentence in May but was found dead in his cell in Casurina prison in September. He is believed to havetaken his own life.
On Thursday, Sharratt imposed on Mullaley a one-year jail sentence, suspended for 12 months, and a fine of $900. If the assault to either police officer had caused “bodily harm”, the magistrate would have had to impose a mandatory minimum sentence of six months’ jail under WA’s strict police protection laws. If an assault on a police officer causes grievous bodily harm, the mandatory minimum sentence is 12 months.
Mullaley told the ABC she was “quite frightened of getting imprisoned”, adding: “I’m very thankful to Mr Sharratt for recognising what had happened within all that time.”
