Adrian Bayley jailed for 35 years for Jill Meagher's rape, murder Bayley gets life for Jill Meagher's murder Adrian Ernest Bayley, the man guilty of the rape and murder of Jill Meagher, will be kept locked behind bars until he's at least 76 years old. The man who raped and murdered Jill Meagher has today been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum jail term of 35 years. It was a savage, violent rape of the gravest kind committed upon a woman whom you knew was most certainly not consenting. Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Nettle said Adrian Ernest Bayley's offending was particularly heinous and made even worse because he had tried to conceal Ms Meagher's body and raped and murdered the former ABC employee while on parole. Adrian Ernest Bayley is escorted into a prison van to begin his minimum 35-year jail sentence. Justice Nettle said he believed Bayley intended to murder Ms Meagher either because she was threatening to call the police after being savagely raped or because he took a perverse pleasure in taking her life. The judge said the murder ranked as one of the worst ever committed in Victoria and Bayley had to be jailed for a very long time. Justice Nettle said he had decided to impose a non-parole period of 35 years for Bayley to give him some incentive to try to rehabilitate himself in prison and he considered Bayley's guilty plea reflected some small degree of remorse. A woman holds up a sign for Adrian Bayley reading 'May you rot in there' as he is driven off to prison. ""The deceased was unknown to you,"" the judge told Bayley. ""You were larger and stronger than she and you used that physical advantage to dominate her. ""In effect, you dragged her off the street, late at night while she was peaceably going about her own business within a stone's throw of her home. Jill Meagher's father George McKeon, flanked by his wife Edith, son Michael and Jill's husband Tom (rear) front the media on the steps of the Supreme Court after the sentencing. ""The rape was savage and degrading. ""It took place over time."" The judge said Bayley had told psychologist Professor James Ogloff that he tried to kiss Ms Meagher and touch her bottom outside a Brunswick laneway off Sydney Road at 1.38am on September 22 last year. Jill Meagher. Ms Meagher reacted by slapping Bayley across the face. Bayley told Dr Ogloff he lost it and became outraged that she had rejected his advances. Justice Nettle said Bayley was determined to have his way with Ms Meagher and overpowered her and raped her where she stood. Bayley strangled Ms Meagher after she became angry with him, hit him with her mobile phone and threatened to call the police. He claimed he later sat in the laneway crying and panicking after he realised Ms Meagher was no longer breathing. Ms Meagher's husband, Tom, her parents, George and Edith McKeon, and her brother, Michael, were sitting in court this morning only metres from Bayley, who sat in the dock flanked by five security guards, to watch him being sentenced. Mrs McKeon, who has not been well and did not attend Bayley's pre-sentence hearing last week, made the effort to be in court to see the man who took her only daughter from her punished. George McKeon provided a short statement outside court after the sentencing on behalf of the family. "Jill lived a life full of family, friends and her beloved Tom," he said. Jill was brutally raped and murdered and is never coming back. Because of Ben Leonard and the team at Victoria Police and Richard Lewis and his colleagues at Public Prosecutions Victoria, justice has now been done. Police and prosecutors, we thank you. The family did not plan to make any further comment. Justice Nettle said Bayley claimed that after he had raped Ms Meagher on the bonnet of a car, he tried to quieten her down by putting his arms around her and she fell back and hit her head on the concrete. ""Nevertheless, you held her down with your hand "on the bottom part of her neck" and maintained pressure until she stopped moving,"" the judge told Bayley. ""Asked how long that took, you said no more than a minute and that, because you are not a small person and fairly strong, you should have known better. ""After that, you said, you sat there crying, panicking, because the deceased had ceased to breathe. ""On the basis of your admissions to the police and Professor Ogloff, I am persuaded beyond reasonable doubt that when you saw an opportunity to rape the deceased, you took it. ""Whether you formed the intention to do so in Sydney Road when you first saw her ... or only later when you got near the laneway in Hope Street I am unable to say. Either is possible and I think the former is more likely than the latter. ""Even so, it was a savage, violent rape of the gravest kind committed upon a woman whom you knew was most certainly not consenting."" Justice Nettle said Ms Meagher had been a small woman, only 157cm tall and weighing only 55 kilograms and a man of Bayley's size could have easily controlled her. ""I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that your previous offending illuminates your moral culpability for the rape and murder of the deceased and ... demonstrates a dangerous propensity to subject women to rape and violence in order to satiate your perverted sexual desires."" The judge said Ms Meagher's rape and murder had had ""profound, terrible effects on the lives of other people. ""On the evidence before me, Gillian Meagher was a vibrant, talented young woman who in all probability had the greater and best part of her life still in front of her. ""By your crimes, you have deprived her of all that. ""You have also deprived her husband of her love and companionship and the prospect of the children to which they looked forward together. ""You have stolen from her parents their entitlement to see their daughter blossom and mature as they grow old and to bear the grandchildren to which they looked forward. ""And you have taken away from her brother the love and support of his only sister. ""Each of their victim impact statements tells of grief and a sense of loss and dismay, which, for those of us who have not experienced it, can only be imagined. ""The sentence I am to impose on you must have regard to the suffering you have caused them."" Justice Nettle said while he saw little reason to suppose that Bayley would ever be rehabilitated given his past, he could not exclude the chance of improvement. ""As bad as your crimes are, you will have the opportunity in jail to strive for rehabilitation and I propose to set a non-parole period as an incentive for you to try."" Justice Nettle sentenced Bayley to life imprisonment for murder and 15 years for rape and ordered a non-parole period of 35 years. He said if Bayley had not pleaded guilty he would have jailed him for life with no parole. Bayley was placed on the sex offenders register for life. Deputy Premier Peter Ryan said the ""hearts and minds"" of Victorians went out to Jill Meagher and her family and friends. ""She died at the hands of Bayley, in circumstances where, as his Honour has observed, these were heinous offences and surely amongst the worst that one would ever want to encounter."" He emphasised that 35 years was the minimum period that Bailey would spend in jail and after that time the parole board would have to take into account his history and conduct in prison. It will be a matter for that parole board therefore in that year, to determine whether 35 years is said to be enough or whether Bayley should remain in prison. He said he was confident that new state government laws - which immediately send offenders back to jail if they are convicted of violent crimes while on parole - would prevent a similar incident from occurring. He said the government was also looking at creating a new offence for breaching parole. ""I think Gillian's father recited the situation well this morning when he said that justice has been done." Treasurer Michael O'Brien said: "the general view would be that the person who did it should rot in jail before he rots in hell. And, I think that the sentence hopefully reflects that view. Henrietta Cook and Richard Willingham