A man who kidnapped an Altona woman at gunpoint in 2011 has had his nine-year sentence reduced on appeal.
Last April, John Booth was convicted in the County Court on charges of criminal damage, aggravated burglary, assault and kidnapping.
He was sentenced to nine years and three months with a non-parole period of seven years.
His sentence was cut to eight years and three months, with a minimum of six years and three months, after Booth appealed to the Supreme Court. Justices David Ashley and Philip Priest ruled that the evidence of a neuropsychologist as to whether Booth had a mental disorder and intellectual disability should not have been rejected.
During the trial, expert witnesses had argued about the level of Booth’s IQ and whether he had an intellectual disability or was malingering.
On April 26, 2011, Booth had gone to Volt nightclub at Werribee Plaza, where his friend and another man got into an argument over the latter’s girlfriend. The dispute escalated into a fight between two groups outside the club.
Booth and his friends drove from Volt to the Altona home of the other man’s girlfriend and broke every window of her unit. He then returned with two other men early the next morning.
The woman and her mother were sharing a bed because they felt insecure. They woke to find three masked men ordering them out of bed. Booth was holding a sawn-off shotgun and the younger woman was dragged by her hair from the bedroom to the lounge, as the men tried to ascertain her boyfriend’s whereabouts.
When the woman said she did not know, she was dragged outside to a car and ordered into the boot. One of the men raised his gun and fired into the air before the car was driven to Booth’s home.
The woman was locked in the boot of the car for about eight hours before being released. She said her kidnappers opened the boot several times, including once when Booth wanted the phone number of the victim’s boyfriend and to throw water at her.
In granting leave to appeal, the Supreme Court said while Booth’s offending was very serious, his intellectual disability would increase the burden of his imprisonment and his sentence should be sensibly moderated.
