IF justice delayed is justice denied, my family has been poorly served by a legal system that claims victims are a high priority
Hugo Rich, the cold-blooded killer who murdered my husband for just doing his job, has finally been sentenced - five months after he was found guilty.
So much for the closure the jury's guilty verdict was supposed to bring after a four-month trial and a legal nightmare that had already stretched over almost four years.
Now I have to brace myself for the inevitable appeal, which is likely to drag on for another year or more.
What sort of legal system allows a low-life like Rich to put people like my family through hell for so long?
Rich was found guilty of executing my Erwin while he was delivering cash in a suburban shopping centre, but he clearly got away with murder inside the courtroom.
I believe every accused person has the right to a fair trial, but the judicial system has to have more control over who is running the show ... in this case the Hugo Rich Show.
I was told at the beginning of my long battle for justice that it was not necessary for me to attend court.
The police and lawyers said I had no inclusion in the case, that it was the legal system taking the accused to trial.
Maybe they were trying to spare me what followed, and the frustration of spending the equivalent of nearly a year in various courts during the process of making someone accountable.
I sat in court fighting for my man's right to justice through 42 sitting days of a committal in the Magistrates' Court, 49 days of a pre-trial hearing in the Supreme Court and 78 days of the actual trial, which ended on June 12.
Those three hearings spanned more than a year and there were were lots of other days as well, of mentions and rulings and legal arguments that prolonged a farce fully funded by the taxpayer.
Rich's proceedings were farcical at times as everyone bent over backwards to avoid upsetting the animal in
the dock.
I was told not to show any emotion or make any noise or I would be asked to leave the court, yet this man abused, yelled and screamed his way through years of delays - caused by him - to be rewarded with exactly what he wanted, not just what he needed, to have a fair trial.
He is like a toddler who throws tantrums and the system is like a poorly skilled parent who doesn't know what to do except give into him.
I LOST count of the defence applications for the jury to be discharged and the repeated delays to the trial, all caused by Rich and the instructions he was constantly giving his lawyers by computer link.
Rich obtained his legal knowledge through the taxpayer-funded prison system and enjoyed the challenge of putting his talents to the test during his own trial for murder.
He sat up there in the dock with his own computer, being supplied with a running transcript of the trial and sending constant directions to his lawyers.
Rich looked as if he was running a business rather than facing a charge of murder.
What sort of system is this?
He has a good legal knowledge, good computer skills and knows the system, but does that mean he should get a superior trial compared to other prisoners who aren't as learned?
Is that a fair system? Did he need to have taxpayer-funded high technology at his disposal in court to get a fair trial outcome? Is this fair on other prisoners who don't have the nous in technology or the structure of the system?
THEY should all be able to get a fair trial without spending over a million dollars of the legal aid budget, which is apparently the estimated cost of bringing this worthless creature to justice.
The system allowed Rich to drag the court process out for years. It's the second time he's done it, and the public should be made aware of it.
This man reoffended within six months after his previous release for armed robbery. If this is what they call "rehabilitation" then heaven help us.
Despite my traumatic state of mind, and the emptiness of my heart after sharing 38 years of marriage with Erwin, my immediate thoughts when this nightmare started were to "stand by my man" as I have always done.
Without me there, my husband is nothing.
I am his face.
But I did not think for one moment the process would take nearly five years of my life.
The system, and Rich's manipulation of it, has caused me more stress and trauma than I could have ever imagined after my husband's needless death.
HE took my Erwin's life for the sake of $162,000, then spent over a million dollars of taxpayers' money trying to avoid the consequences.
Now, providing the Court of Appeal doesn't find some legal technicality that will prolong our ordeal even more, at least he's finally going to be made to pay the price for what he's done.