The killing of Jodie Palipuaminni by her husband Trenton Cunningham was terrible. He did this while on parole for previously assaulting her with a steel bar and pouring boiling water over her. Despite a parole condition that he have no contact with his wife, he was able to breach his parole on at least 5 occasions.



Finally after 11 years of abuse, he beat her to death. The thing I found amazing is that he only got 6 and a half years jail for manslaughter. The guy was obviously a brutal thug, had a pattern of violence towards his wife, but somehow only got convicted for manslaughter. No doubt he didn’t have a specific intent to kill her when he did, but surely her death as a result of his actions was a reasonably foreseeable consequence?



The other thing that comes from this case is the neglect by the Northern Territory parole bureaucracy …no doubt, they were black, they were in a remote area, it was all too much trouble to monitor Cunningham, played their role in its failure to intervene.





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