Jemma Victoria Lilley (left) and Trudi Clare Lenon.
Camera IconJemma Victoria Lilley (left) and Trudi Clare Lenon. Credit: Supplied/Supplied

Why Danny Green has got it so wrong on Aaron Pajich’s murderer

Greig JohnstonStirling Times

MORE: Danny Green wants ‘slow death’ for convicted Aaron Pajich murderer

OH DANNY boy…

Danny Green has done a lot of good in his 45 years on the planet.

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His Danny Green Fighting Chance Foundation aims to help schools provide food for students.

He’s the face of a national campaign to end one-punch assaults.

And he used to box a bit.

But his latest Facebook post is so woefully off base that it leaves you scratching your head.

A man who extols the virtues of non-violence has declared a prison attack, that reportedly left a convicted murderer with burns to 30 per cent of their body, was fair game.

Trudi Lenon, convicted along with Jemma Lilley of murdering autistic teenager Aaron Pajich-Sweetman, was taken to Fiona Stanley Hospital following the attack, which occurred at Bandyup Prison where she is awaiting sentencing.

Anyone familiar with the case would acknowledge these two women are abhorrent.

Like most, I wasn’t too fussed when I read about the attack on Lenon.

But in a Facebook post on Wednesday Green, in not so many words, sanctioned violent retribution and the reintroduction of the death penalty.

His post served no purpose, other than his own. It generated a litany of ‘good on ya Danny’ sentiment.

“My hat is off to whoever carried out this act,” he wrote.

“I’m tired of our putrid constitution forcing the law into the hands of the community.”

By ‘the community’, we presume Green means the Bandyup Prison community.

He makes no mention of which sections of the Constitution need changing.

And bear in mind neither Lenon or Lilley have been sentenced yet.

He went on:

“I hope you get an infection and die a horrid and slow and obscenely painful death you foul mutt,” he wrote.

Green is angry. Anyone who followed the Aaron Pajich-Sweetman case should be angry.

“This poor young man – the way his life ended was just incomprehensible,” Green wrote, and he is right.

What happened to Aaron Pajich-Sweetman was horrible, senseless, tragic and infuriating.

Reading the reports each day of the trial was heartbreaking.

But public figures like Danny Green have no business advocating the assault and murder of people who are convicted of crimes, no matter how repugnant they are.

WA abolished capital punishment in 1984, and debate about reinstating it flares every time a heinous crime is committed.

But it will not change.

People who commit particularly depraved crimes usually face a more harrowing prison stay than most.

We don’t need people who are as admired, respected and influential as Danny Green baying for their blood from the bleachers.