Kalani Joliffe-Cole, 29, has been sentenced to jail by the ACT Supreme Court. Photo: Facebook.
Out of nowhere, Kalani Joliffe-Cole launched himself at a man and started repeatedly stabbing him in a frenzied attack.
He then got back into a car and drove off, leaving his victim to bleed out on the side of the road from his life-threatening injuries.
Neither he nor any of the others in his car tried to help, and were it not for the assistance of good Samaritans who were driving nearby, the victim would likely have died.
Joliffe-Cole was found guilty of intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm over the attack at the end of a jury trial, the ACT Supreme Court heard when he was sentenced on Tuesday (15 September).
Chief Justice Lucy McCallum said the victim had wanted to warn Joliffe-Cole’s friend that people were making threats against him, so he planned to meet him on 8 December 2022. But when the friend showed up, he found Joliffe-Cole had tagged along.
The victim thought his warnings were not being taken seriously and the others were being hostile to him. But he still drove with them to an associate’s house before the three men and two women all got into the car.
Joliffe-Cole drove the car to Uriarra Road, which is west of Canberra, before asking his friend, “Is this far enough?”
He pulled over to the side of a dirt road and told the victim to get out. Straight away, he hit the victim, then used a knife to repeatedly stab him in his head, chest, arms and back.
“The stabbing was repeated and ferocious,” Chief Justice McCallum said.
Joliffe-Cole got back in the car and drove the others away, leaving the bleeding victim alone in remote farmland with no phone or wallet.
Fortunately, drivers of two passing cars saw him. One provided first aid when he collapsed, while the other called Triple Zero.
A doctor thought the victim would have died without the urgent medical intervention he received.
As a result, Chief Justice McCallum said she wanted to acknowledge the courage and kindness of the people who stopped to help and the paramedics who acted quickly, because their actions likely saved his life.
During the trial, Joliffe-Cole claimed he acted in self-defence when the victim pulled out a gun. But the guilty verdict suggests the jury rejected this claim.
“There is no evidence he provided any threat whatsoever to the offender or [his friend],” Chief Justice McCallum said.
She said the others had remained in the car during the attack and hadn’t been charged as co-offenders.
The Chief Justice said the motive for the attack was unexplained, although she noted Joliffe-Cole was under the influence of methylamphetamine at the time.
She said he had suffered significant disadvantage in his childhood, which was a major factor that drove him towards drugs.
The father-of-two has been in continuous custody for about three years and eight months due to sentences he received in both NSW and in the ACT.
He was convicted and sentenced to a total of seven years and two months’ jail with a non-parole period of two-and-a-half years, backdated to account for time served.
Chief Justice McCallum said this may appear lenient, but it effectively means he will have been sentenced to a total of nine years and eight months’ jail, with a five-year non-parole period, when all his sentences from NSW and the ACT are combined.
Joliffe-Cole’s non-parole period means he will be eligible for release in January 2028.
But because he has an outstanding warrant for his arrest in NSW, authorities in that state will likely take him into custody again when he is released in the ACT.
Margaret Freemantle well how long have you been around ? since the billionaires came to town ?? View