Due to his “terrible” manslaughter of a woman in a Brisbane park, a man has been sentenced to nine years in prison.
Instead of going on trial for the murder of 26-year-old Ioli Hadjilyra on Monday, Bradley Scott Edwards, 38, entered a guilty plea to manslaughter.
On Friday, Edwards appeared in Brisbane Supreme Court to be sentenced.
On September 4, 2019, council workers discovered Hadjilyra’s partially hidden and battered body in a garden bed at Kalinga Park in north Brisbane.
Alongside some of her artwork, Hadjilyra, a gifted sketch artist originally from Cyprus, was found.
At the Friday sentencing hearing, her father was in the courtroom.
Hadjilyra’s exact cause of death was unknown to a pathologist, but it was most likely smothering or neck compression with complications from drug toxicity.
Elizabeth Kelso, the crown prosecutor, stated that there was no proof Edwards helped Hadjilyra after she was hurt and that she chose to hide her body and bag instead.
The victim was described by Kelso as “quite slight in size” at 167cm tall and weighing less than 50kg, while Edwards, a tall man, sat in the dock.
The court was informed that Edwards had a lengthy record of nonviolent offenses following his juvenile conviction for rape and torture.
According to Kelso, Hadjilyra had a lengthy history of mental health problems, as well as problems with cannabis and methamphetamine use.
Edwards and Hadjilyra met in the central business district of Brisbane and took public transportation to the park in order to procure drugs; however, Edwards was observed departing by himself.
Two weeks later, he was taken into custody and admitted to being in Hadjilyra’s CCTV footage.
Speaking with an undercover agent, Edwards claimed he had not slept for nine days and smoked fifteen doses of methamphetamine, making it difficult for him to recall much.
Defense attorney Jacob Robson stated that Edwards was sorry and had offered without being asked to pen a letter of apology.
“Over the previous four years, he had made progress on remand… He acknowledges that the way he left the body was especially reprehensible,” Robson remarked.
He said that while on remand, Edwards had been treated for schizophrenia with auditory hallucinations and had a learning disability.
According to Judge Sue Brown, prosecutors have acknowledged that Edwards had an abusive childhood, mental health problems, and no intention of causing Hadjilyra’s death.
“You still did a terrible thing in the acts that took her life,” Brown stated.
Hadjilyra had intended to pay a visit to her mother’s tomb, she said, and the family’s suffering had only been exacerbated by Edwards’ unjustified attack.
You abandoned her as if she had no value. She wasn’t; rather, the judge stated, “She was someone’s daughter, sister, friend, and she was loved.”
According to Brown, Hadjilyra’s father claimed he thinks about her and her death every day.
On December 9 of this year, Edwards was sentenced to nine years in prison with the possibility of parole because he had already completed four years and two months of service.
