An Australian investment banker who attached a fake bomb around the neck of a Sydney schoolgirl in a bid to extort money from her wealthy family was jailed for at least 10 years yesterday.
Paul Peters, 52, who was arrested and extradited from the US in September last year with the help of the FBI, pleaded guilty to aggravated breaking and entering, and detaining the teenager for advantage.
The father of three made global headlines when he broke into the multimillion-dollar Pulver family home wearing a mask and strapped a device to 18-year-old Madeleine’s neck with a note claiming it was a bomb in August last year.
A Sydney court heard he was suffering psychiatric problems after his marriage broke down and he lost custody of his children, with the judge saying he appeared to think he was an “avenging character” in a novel he was writing.
He told doctors he had wandered Sydney’s leafy harbor suburbs, seeking to “relive scenes in the book” — set in Hong Kong — and eventually came to believe he was one of the protagonists, John Chan.
He fixed the hoax collar bomb to Pulver as part of a plan to exact what he described as “dual revenge — one for John and one for me.”
Police, bomb squad and other emergency services descended on the scene and Pulver endured a horrifying 10-hour ordeal with experts working into the night to remove the device, only later establishing it was an elaborate hoax.
Pulver was in court to watch Judge Peter Zahra jail Peters for a maximum 13 years, 6 months and said she was “pleased with today’s outcome and that I can now look to a future without Paul Peters’ name linked to mine.”
“I realize it is going to take quite some time to come to terms with what happened, but today was important because now the legal process is over,” the teenager told reporters outside court. “For me, it was never about the sentencing, but to know that he will not reoffend, and it was good to hear the judge acknowledge the trauma that he has put my family and me through.”
Her father, Bill, said there was a “great sense of relief” for the family.
Zahra, who said Peters would be eligible for parole in 10 years, described his bizarre crime as “heinous” and a “deliberate act of extortion” which had terrified Pulver, now aged 19, who was home alone studying for exams.
“The offender entered a house armed and disguised. He found the young girl on her own and vulnerable,” Zahra said. “At the time of placing the device he had prepared around the neck of the victim he would have appreciated the enormity of what he was doing, and the terrible effect and consequence of his conduct upon the victim.”
Zahra said Peters “would have been aware that after he left the victim she would have experienced considerable trauma, before it was determined that the device did not contain explosives.”
“He would have understood, at the time, in the many hours that followed she was in fear she would be killed,” he added. “The terror instilled can only be described as unimaginable.”
Zahra said that Peters’ expressions of remorse had been “qualified and guarded” and gave him “minimal” discount for his mental health problems, which included bipolar disorder, alcohol abuse and major depression.
Prosecutors had described the sensational case as an act of “urban terrorism” fueled by financial greed.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in