A Melbourne security guard hired to help evict a man from a home has had his prison sentence extended by two years after a court found it was “manifestly inadequate”.
Terrence Tiumalu, 32, appeared in the Victorian Court of Appeal on Tuesday where his sentence was overturned as a panel of judges instead imposed a nine year and six month jail stint.
The Samoan-born man showed no emotion as the new sentence was read out by Justice Karin Emerton.
Tiumalu was initially jailed for seven years and six months in April last year after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of Brendon Farrell, 33, in 2021.
The court was told Mr Farrell had been renting the rear bungalow of a Doveton property, in Melbourne’s southeast, before tensions began boiling over with his landlord Richard Jackson, 49.
Mr Jackson enlisted Tiumalu, who had been working as a debt collector, to evict Mr Farrell from the property on May 31, 2021.
At the property, Tiumalu lost his temper assaulting Mr Farrell before telling Mr Jackson, who was outside at the time, he’d done some “redecorating”.
Tiumalu then loaded Mr Farrell into the rear footwell of his car and drove off.
Mr Farrell’s body was found five weeks later, wrapped in a blanket and shoved into a canoe at a property in Noble Park.
On Tiumalu’s phone, police found videos showing him digging two graves and standing over Mr Farrell, who was motionless and bloody.
The court was told it was likely Mr Farrell remained alive for some time but died between May 31 and June 9.
In their judgment, Justices Emerton, Phillip Priest and Stephen McLeish found Tiumalu had treated Mr Farrell with “appalling callousness”.
“He could not have failed to realise that Mr Farrell was seriously injured,” they wrote.
“During the period that he left Mr Farrell to languish, it could not be said that the respondent was racked with remorse.”
Tiumalu will be eligible for parole in July 2028 after serving seven years of his sentence.
Source Agencies
