NSW:Cop basher sentenced to maximum 21yrs jail

AAP General News (Australia)
12-16-2010
NSW:Cop basher sentenced to maximum 21yrs jail

By Belinda Merhab

SYDNEY, Dec 16 AAP - Sydney Sergeant Samantha Barlow was walking to work at Kings Cross
police station when her skull was smashed by a heroin addict wielding a piece of brick.

After the attack in the early hours of May 13 last year, Roderick Holohan ran off with
$200 while Sgt Barlow was left for dead in a nearby park.

In the NSW District Court in Sydney on Thursday, Judge Colin Charteris described the
attack as "vicious and brutal" and sentenced Holohan to a minimum 11-and-a-half years
jail for his attack on Sgt Barlow.

Holohan was also sentenced over the assault of another woman, Anna Berry, who he tried
to rob just hours before attacking Sgt Barlow, and for breaking into a camera store at
Wollongong days before he attacked the two women.

The 41-year-old had pleaded guilty to all three attacks, including charges of robbery
while armed with an offensive weapon and causing wounding/grievous bodily harm to Sgt
Barlow.

He was sentenced to a maximum 21 years imprisonment for the three offences combined,
with a non-parole period of 15 years and nine months, starting on August 14, 2009.

The court heard that on May 12, 2009, Holohan tried to attack Ms Berry in Darlinghurst,
in Sydney's east, but she fought him off.

He later told police he was trying to rob people to buy heroin.

Hours later, he spotted Sgt Barlow in civilian clothing.

He grabbed a piece of brick and hit her at least twice in the face.

He then hit her twice in the back of the head while she was on the ground and, thinking
he had killed her, dragged her into Arthur Park at Kings Cross "so no one could see her",
before stealing her bags.

He bought a bottle of water to wash his hands - because the incident made him "feel
sick" - before catching a train to Port Kembla, south of Wollongong.

At the time of the attack, Holohan was on parole for a break, enter and steal offence.

Sgt Barlow was found by colleagues bloodied and "dazed" in a nearby bus shelter, having
left an eight-metre trail of blood.

The 35-year-old mother-of-two was taken to hospital and placed in an induced coma before
part of her fractured skull was removed to relieve pressure on her brain.

Holohan told police he felt "really bad" for Sgt Barlow and her family.

"I will take it to my grave, I know that," he said.

Judge Charteris said Holohan had an "appalling" criminal record and his attack on Sgt
Barlow should be placed in a "worst case bracket".

"(It was a) cowardly, vicious and brutal attack on a citizen that was doing no more
than going to her workplace," the judge said.

Outside court, Sgt Barlow, flanked by her husband, Inspector Laurence Barlow, said
the sentencing of Holohan was a "significant milestone" that would allow her to move on
with her life.

But it would never be enough for what she had suffered, she added.

"I was walking to work to do the job I love, serving the community of NSW," she told reporters.

"I was brutally bashed and left on the side of the road.

"Since that day, I have not had the opportunity to do my job, be a mother to my children
or the wife to my husband that I wanted to be.

"Despite what this criminal did to me, I would not let him beat me," she said.

Holohan will be eligible for parole in May 2025.

AAP bm/klm/cdh

KEYWORD: HOLOHAN WRAP (FILE PIX AVAILABLE)

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