{"id":337647,"date":"2025-10-28T05:02:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T05:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/337647\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T05:02:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T05:02:17","slug":"hannah-mcguires-killer-lachlan-young-stares-blankly-during-minutes-silence-in-the-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/337647\/","title":{"rendered":"Hannah McGuire’s killer Lachlan Young stares blankly during minute’s silence in the Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a small, touching gesture that brought some in the courtroom to tears.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday \u2014 a day after the Supreme Court heard harrowing details of Hannah McGuire’s murder<\/a> \u2014 Justice James Elliott halted proceedings midway through legal submissions.<\/p>\n

“It’s not usual, but I’ve done it before in appropriate cases,” said Justice Elliott, who has served on the Supreme Court since 2013.<\/p>\n

“Given the interest of the community in this matter and the circumstances of the case, I know it’s been done elsewhere, but I’d like to have a minute’s silence now, in memory of Hannah.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Hannah McGuire’s parents, Debbie and Glenn McGuire, as they arrived at court earlier this week. (AAP: Joel Carett)<\/p>\n

Ms McGuire’s father, Glenn McGuire, wiped away tears and his wife, Debbie, placed an arm around his shoulder. Justice Elliott sat with his eyes shut, head bowed.<\/p>\n

Through the silence, Ms McGuire’s killer, Lachlan Young, sat in the court dock, staring blankly ahead.<\/p>\n

When the minute’s silence ended, prosecutor Kristie Churchill rose to her feet, calling Young a murderer who had shown no remorse.<\/p>\n

“Women are entitled to have and end relationships without it resulting in their deaths,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Lachlan Young stared straight ahead throughout the minute’s silence for his victim, Hannah McGuire. (Supplied: Instagram)<\/p>\n

On Monday, the court heard Ms McGuire was planning to leave Young, who had a history of domestic violence.<\/p>\n

In April 2024, he strangled her in their Sebastopol home, then placed her body in her ute and set it alight in bushland on Ballarat’s outskirts.<\/p>\n

“He denied her dignity even in death,” Ms Churchill said.<\/p>\n

“They are the actions of someone who is cold, calculated and perhaps remorseless.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“‘Perhaps remorseless’ \u2014 what do you mean by that?” Justice Elliott asked.<\/p>\n

“Well, I mean remorseless. I’ll remove the word ‘perhaps,'” she replied.<\/p>\n

To stage the murder as a suicide, Young sent messages from Ms McGuire’s phone to her mother, who was in a state of panic about her missing daughter.<\/p>\n

“The texts to Ms McGuire show a special kind of cruelty,” Ms Churchill said.<\/p>\n

\"Hannah<\/p>\n

Hannah McGuire’s body was found inside a burnt-out vehicle near State Forest Rd in Scarsdale. (Supplied: GoFundMe)<\/p>\n

Two days of pre-sentence court hearings have now concluded, allowing Justice Elliott to hear victim impact statements and legal submissions about the severity of Young’s crime.<\/p>\n

In Victoria, the standard sentence for murder is 25 years’ jail and the maximum penalty is life behind bars.<\/p>\n

Defence barrister Glenn Casement urged the judge to consider that Young was aged in his early 20s and had pleaded guilty to Ms McGuire’s murder.<\/p>\n

In the context of domestic violence murders, Mr Casement argued, Young differed from other killers who fought the charges and maintained their innocence at trial.<\/p>\n

“He’s late to his plea, but people beyond his age by decades don’t do it,” Mr Casement said.<\/p>\n

However, Ms Churchill said Young’s case had taken up 24 days of Supreme Court time before he entered his guilty plea, eight days into his trial.<\/p>\n

By that stage, witnesses including Ms McGuire’s distraught friends and parents had been cross-examined.<\/p>\n

“There is very little evidence of genuine remorse, true contrition,” Ms Churchill said.<\/p>\n

Young will be sentenced at a later date.<\/p>\n

\"Sketch<\/p>\n

The prosecution alleges Lachlan Young has not shown any real remorse for killing Hannah McGuire. (ABC: Anita Lester)<\/p>\n

She said domestic homicides had, in the past, been treated less seriously than other murders by the courts.<\/p>\n

“Cases back not that long ago accepted the human frailty of men who killed their partners in times of great emotional distress as a factor that reduced a sentence overall,” she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Churchill said accepted modern-day sentencing practices did not afford male domestic violence killers such graces, a position echoed by Justice Elliott and defence barrister Mr Casement.<\/p>\n

“We say that the regime that is exists at the moment is producing appropriate outcomes,” Mr Casement said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a small, touching gesture that brought some in the courtroom to tears. On Tuesday \u2014 a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":337648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,281,32551,166825,9620,50,166826,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-337647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-court","10":"tag-domestic-violence","11":"tag-hannah-mcguire","12":"tag-murder","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-pre-sentence-hearing","15":"tag-supreme-court"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115450042525775385","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}