My name is Roxanne Brown, and I am the eldest daughter of Roberta and Peter Brown. My mother Bobbie was killed by a motorist in 2017 who recently won an appeal against the severity of his sentence.
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It is called a legal system, not a justice system, and there is reason for that. There will be no justice for us, there is no justice for so many. Nothing will ever be enough for the families who have been ripped apart and changed forever. Our view of the world and its cruelties is clear now, and it is so easy to slip into anger and depression at the unfairness of it all.
How is my beautiful mother’s life quantified like this? Do the many people who work in our legal system refuse to see through our eyes? They forget about the families and just see names, places, dates and death on paper. They use this to weigh up who is responsible, judge their sentence and go home to a good night’s sleep. It’s an old grievance but it happens every single day.
Nothing will ever be enough for our mother and wife. For as I long as I can remember I have been told that all mum wanted was to become a mother, to have a husband and a family of her own. She poured her love, encouragement, support and generosity into each of us, she was the centre of our family. Mum brought us together, and brought so many others into the house she made a home. Our support system is only there because she made it so, but we could have never been prepared for this.
We have lost so much. Shells of who we once were, bits of us taken and discarded, never to return. Grieving for our mother and wife, whilst dealing with our legal system. Bobbie gave me life and her life was so swiftly taken from us by a man who had the audacity to appeal such a minimal sentence, and was granted the appeal by a legal system that doesn’t know any form of justice. But what can we do?
Roxanne Brown
A duty to protect us
I have watched, with concern, the cash splashes promised by the Premier and Leader of the Opposition leading up to the Victorian election. In particular they have both informed the citizens of Victoria how they propose to spend in Melbourne, the monies they will collect from or borrow on behalf of Victorians in the next 30 years.
The Premier has still not realised that there are Victorians living outside Melbourne. Neither of them has sought to deal with the failure by the current government and former governments to uphold law and order within Victoria.
Homes and businesses are being invaded by drug and alcohol-fuelled thugs and hooligans and the residents and workers are being bashed, robbed and raped, and motor vehicles are stolen and driven by unlicensed and disqualified drivers dangerously and at high speeds, while police are prevented from acting. Weak and inefficient laws do nothing to protect law-abiding citizens of Victoria.
It has become clear that judges, magistrates, parole boards and bail justices have been indoctrinated by and become bleeding hearts, who are more concerned with reforming and rehabilitating criminals than in protecting the public from the criminals.
The Victorian government has a duty to protect the community, by bringing in set minimum sentencing and fines for serious breaches of the law.