A mother is eyeing her next target after her advocacy following her daughter’s shock killing fuelled a push for minimum prison terms for domestic violence-linked murders.
Tabitha Acret hopes new NSW legislation that would lift the standard non-parole period for intimate partner deaths to 25 years will prove a powerful deterrent.
She is calling on governments to go further and introduce mandatory minimum sentences when offenders breach apprehended violence orders while committing an assault or murder.
More than 110,000 people have signed a petition backing the reform after Ms Acret told her story.
Her daughter Mackenzie Anderson, 21, was stabbed 78 times by ex-boyfriend Tyrone Thompson in a furious attack in March 2022.
Thompson had been released on parole 16 days earlier for assaulting the Newcastle woman and destroying her property.
He was also subject to an AVO, which he broke immediately upon release by calling Ms Anderson to say he was coming for her.
“He got zero added to his sentence for it – that sends a dangerous message,” Ms Acret told reporters on Thursday.
Thompson’s 22-and-a-half-year prison term in May was panned by her family and appealed by prosecutors as “manifestly inadequate”.
While the Crown argued the sentence damaged the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system and urged judges to send a strong message, an appeal court declined to increase the term.
The court ruled the sentence was in line with “broadly similar” cases.
Those included the 26 years and eight months imposed for the murder of a mother-of-two knifed at least 14 times inside her Wollongong home on New Year’s Eve 2019.
“My daughter’s case got described as one of the worst crime cases in NSW,” Ms Acret said.
“I didn’t want her legacy to be letting off violent offenders and I also don’t want to see other families suffer through the justice system like we did.”
Premier Chris Minns thanked the mother for her advocacy, which had driven the state to increase its punishments.
“No parent should ever have to endure what Tabitha has, yet she has used her voice to drive real change that will help protect others,” he said.
The increase in the standard non-parole period for intimate partner homicides would recognise the true severity of the crime and ensure perpetrators were held accountable, the government said.
Murder has a standard non-parole period of 20 years in NSW.
Increasing the period for domestic violence murders to 25 years would align them with some of the state’s most severe sentencing standards, including the murder of a child or public official enacting their duties.
In the five years to June, 59 people were murdered by a current or former intimate partner in the state, 42 of them women.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
Lifeline 13 11 14
Men’s Referral Service 1300 766 491
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