NSW: Determinate sentence refused for child killer and rapist

AAP General News (Australia)
12-15-1999
NSW: Determinate sentence refused for child killer and rapist

A Sydney judge has refused to impose a minimum jail term on a man who broke into a
house and raped and murdered a nine-year-old girl in her bed.

Describing the 1987 crimes as being in the worst case category, Justice PETER NEWMAN
has said despite RODNEY THOMAS CLARKE's progress in jail, he remains a danger to the community.

Under truth-in-sentencing legislation, CLARKE, now 34, had applied to the New South
Wales Supreme Court for a minimum jail term to be set for the life sentence imposed on
him in 1988.

Justice NEWMAN dismissed the application, ordering that CLARKE cannot make another
one for three years, when he will have completed an intensive therapy program for sex
offenders.

A jury in 1988 found CLARKE guilty of murdering DEBORAH KEEGAN, and of three counts
of illegal sexual intercourse in July 1987, in her home at Tregear in Sydney's west.

AAP RTV mss/sb/kbw/jn

KEYWORD: CLARKE (SYDNEY)

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