Jill Meagher husband lashes sentence as Adrian Bayley sent down for 35 years THE husband of murdered ABC staffer Jill Meagher has lashed out at the 15-year rape sentence handed to her killer, labelling it a "disgrace" even though Adrian Ernest Bayley will spend at least 35 years in prison. While Jill Meagher's father George McKeon yesterday welcomed a judge's decision to sentence Bayley to life imprisonment for the murder, saying "justice has now been done," Tom Meagher spoke out angrily in his first interview since his wife's death last September. "Given what this man has done in the past, I think that 15 years is a disgrace, considering the maximum penalty for rape is 25," he told ABC TV's 7.30. I don't know what the maximum penalty is for, if it's not for that man? Emotions were running high as Supreme Court judge Geoffrey Nettle gave Bayley the life sentence, with 15 years for raping Meagher, and a non-parole period of 35 years. The possibility that he could be released, even at the age of 76, for strangling the 29-year-old ABC staffer has left questions lingering about whether this truly represents "justice for Jill," after Justice Nettle said Bayley's guilty plea was the only reason he stood a chance of freedom. "Apart from the fact she was about to call the police, and apart from the sadistic pleasure which you evidently derive from hurting women, there was no reason to hold her on the ground by the neck until she ceased to breathe," he said. Bayley accosted Meagher as she walked home from a bar in Brunswick, in Melbourne's inner northern suburbs, where she had been drinking with an ABC colleague in the early hours of September 22 last year. He had previously served 11 years' jail for raping and violently attacking eight women and was on parole when he found Meagher. Bayley, 41, gave a gulp as his life sentence was announced, staring straight ahead as jubilant exclamations erupted from the courtroom's crowded public gallery. On the airwaves and social media, there was outrage that such a violent rapist could one day walk free. Mr Meagher said Bayley's previous 11-year sentence for raping five prostitutes sent a "disturbing message." This man is unrepentantly evil. He's been let off too many times by our justice system. What it says to women is 'if we don't like what you do, you won't get justice', and what it says to people like Bayley is not 'don't rape', but 'be careful who you rape'. Justice Nettle said mental health professionals had previously expressed optimism about the prospects of Bayley's rehabilitation, but "without exception they have proved unfounded." "Consequently, I see little reason now, and little has been suggested, to suppose that you will ever be rehabilitated," he said.