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Supreme Court judge James Elliott called for a minute’s silence to honour murdered Clunes woman Hannah McGuire, moments before the court was told her former boyfriend was a cold, calculated and remorseless killer.
As silence fell on the packed courtroom in Ballarat, 23-year-old Lachlan Young, who killed McGuire last April before setting her car on fire with her body inside, stared blankly ahead.
The body of Hannah McGuire was found in her burnt-out car in bushland near Ballarat in April 2024.Credit: The Age
Many of McGuire’s family and friends closed their eyes. Others wiped away tears, heads bowed in sorrow.
Elliott said that while a minute’s silence was unusual in a courtroom, it was reflective of the impact of McGuire’s death.
In her closing submissions to a pre-sentence hearing for Young, prosecutor Kristie Churchill said the Ballarat man planned to unleash an act of “terror” on McGuire after being unable to accept the end of their relationship.
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“Women are allowed to end relationships without it causing their death,” Churchill said.
“It’s the shameful truth that family violence is the leading cause of illness, disability and death among Victorian women aged between 15 and 44.
“Ms McGuire was a young woman whose life was taken because the offender couldn’t, or wouldn’t, allow her to live a life beyond his relationship with her.
“Hannah McGuire should have been able to end her relationship as she saw fit.”
Churchill said Young was motivated by “rage and male entitlement” when he violently threw McGuire to the ground on the bathroom floor of a house they once shared.
He then placed his hand around her neck and strangled her in the early hours of April 5 last year.
“Her final moments must have been filled with terror as the offender took her life,” Churchill said.
Churchill said the devastation over McGuire’s murder in the small town of Clunes and in nearby Ballarat was palpable, and her death was another tragic example of intimate partner violence, which has been declared a national emergency.
“The impact can only be described as enormous,” Churchill said.
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She described McGuire’s murder as the final act of extreme violence as occurring against a backdrop of a terrifying, abusive and controlling relationship.
Churchill said that instead of calling Triple Zero or helping McGuire, Young put her body in the back of her orange Trident ute.
He then drove her body to a remote forest in Scarsdale and set the vehicle alight with a blowtorch.
He watched as the vehicle was engulfed in flames for a few moments, before driving away.
Churchill said Young then did everything he could to conceal McGuire’s murder, which she described as “cold, calculated and remorseless” for the purpose of “self-interest and self-preservation.”
She told the court Young had displayed a “special kind of cruelty” when he sent a series of texts to McGuire’s distraught mother, Debbie, purporting to be a suicide note from her daughter.
The texts sent McGuire’s parents on a frantic search for her, but by then her dead body was already burning in the torched car.
Debbie McGuire’s final texts to her daughter said: “Come home to mum, Hannah. I love you.”
On Monday, Debbie said she could never forgive her daughter’s killer, while her father, Glenn, told the court he grappled with thoughts of suicide, consumed by guilt that he could not protect his daughter.
“I will never forget, and I will never forgive,” Debbie told the court. “I hope every day for the rest of his life he experiences the most intense pain imaginable.”
Churchill said Young had undermined the police investigation in any way he could, prolonging the “trauma, pain and suffering” of McGuire’s family and friends.
“He denied her dignity even in death,” Churchill said.
“She was just 23 years of age at the time of her death. She would have been expected to live a very long life.”
Churchill said Young’s moral culpability was high, and his jail sentence should sit at the upper range for his offending.
Young’s lawyer, Glenn Casement, said his client had made an “awful mistake”, and eventually pleaded guilty to the murder, which must be considered during sentencing. His initial offer of a guilty plea to manslaughter was rejected by the prosecution, and he changed his plea to guilty to murder eight days into the trial.
Casement said the murder was a “spontaneous event” and Young had written to his sister and expressed remorse. Details of the letter were not shared in court.
Casement said Young grew up in a turbulent and violent home, had substance abuse issues and left school in year 8. He said Young was only 21 at the time of the murder, and was seeking help for his anger management and mental health issues.
“Mr Young carried on the charade, but it was doomed to fail, and it did fail,” he said.
Churchill said Young’s offending couldn’t be explained by his youth or lack of education.
The court heard that before her death, Young frequently degraded McGuire, body-shamed her, screamed at her in public, controlled her and stalked her outside her workplace before trying to run her off the road in his car.
He was physically violent towards her, with the court hearing about one attack in which he had punched and kicked her.
Young will be sentenced at a later date.
For support, contact: National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732). Crisis support is available from Lifeline 13 11 14.
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