A murderous vengeance assault with surreal voice recordings evocative of a Quentin Tarantino film has resulted in two long prison terms.
After a month of deliberation, a jury in the Victorian Supreme Court found 45-year-old Duc Nguyen guilty of murder in March.
Laidlaw, 55, was shot and killed in July 2022 in Melbourne’s inner north.
After conspiring with Nguyen to murder Laidlaw, his 23-year-old girlfriend Scarlett Curham pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
On Friday, the couple received their sentence: 29 years in prison with a 21-year non-parole period for Nguyen.
The judge handed down a 10-year sentence to Curham, who began abusing drugs in her early teens; she will be eligible for release after serving six of those years.
While Laidlaw’s sister revealed that she had relapsed into heavy drinking after eight years of sobriety, Laidlaw’s father expressed his sadness at the loss of the 55-year-old’s father to the court.
A number of lives have been profoundly and tragically impacted by your acts,” Justice Christopher Beale informed the two on Friday.
According to court records from a July pre-sentence hearing, Curham contacted Laidlaw via text message on July 12th in order to facilitate a heroin trade for her acquaintance.
Following their theft of license plates, Nguyen and Curham drove to Napier Street in Fitzroy in an Audi that they had borrowed from a friend.
At around four o’clock in the afternoon, Laidlaw approached the vehicle, said hello to Curham, and climbed into the front passenger seat.
After what seemed like an eternity, Nguyen shot him in the back. Laidlaw sprang out of the car and dashed across the street, only to pass out and die on the spot.
The arrest of Nguyen led to the discovery of eight audio recordings on his phone by the authorities.
Beale disagreed with Nguyen’s defense attorney, who said the tapes didn’t show the shooting was premeditated.
“Whilst the two of you may have been drug-affected and your conversations were sometimes bizarre and reminiscent of a Tarantino film, it is clear from the recorded conversations that you planned with Curham to shoot Laidlaw,” according to him.
Even though Curham was “critical” in bringing Laidlaw to the car, Beale claimed that after pleading guilty, she got a two-year reduction in her sentence.
“Even though you did not pull the trigger, you were a major player in the joint criminal enterprise,” stated the judge.
Because of his extensive criminal record, lack of real regret, and the fact that he went to trial for murder, Nguyen did not qualify for a reduction, according to Beale.
More than 800 days have passed since the couple was arrested.
