Mandatory Murder Charges For Bashing Perpetrators

One punch can kill. It's not like in the movies where people simply walk away from fights. Street violence kills and maims, and leaves families inconsolable.

The latest instance of the type of thuggery we now see and read about on an all-too-regular basis is the death of 22-year-old David Cassai in Rye on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. He and a group of friends were set upon in the early hours of December 31 by at least three other men. 18-year-old Dylan John Closter has since been charged with his manslaughter.

This petition calls on all State and Territory governments to implement mandatory murder charges for crimes of this nature, and to have ANY attack on the head classed as attempted murder.

Manslaughter by definition connotes the absence of premeditation and is therefore an inadequate charge for a wilful attack on the head, an act that by its nature carries a high probability of occasioning serious injury or death.  The application of manslaughter, and in many cases its lesser variants, no longer satisfies community expectations, nor do the sentences currently imposed reflect the gravity of the offence.

This can only be remedied through the implementation of mandatory charges and sentencing, serving to not only deliver justice to victims and their families, but curb the rise of unprovoked attacks resulting in death.