MARYBOROUGH parish priest Fr Paul Kelly has exceeded by 160,000 signatures his goal in support for a petition to remove the so-called “gay panic” defence to homicide under current Queensland laws.
Fr Kelly said he had initially planned to deliver the petition to Premier Campbell Newman when the signatures reached 40,000.
Indications from the State Gov-ernment that the law would not change to eliminate the “gay panic” defence led Fr Kelly to launch a fresh campaign earlier this month.
“Signatures in support now exceed 200,000,” he said.
Fr Kelly was one of the first on the scene when a man died after a bashing by two men in the grounds of St Mary’s Church, Maryborough, in July 2008.
Jason Andrew Pearce was charged with the murder of the man, but was convicted of manslaughter after using the defence.
The court did not accept theaccused men’s defence that the murdered man had followed them and tried to grab Pearce’s crotch before the victim was beaten to death.
However, under Queensland laws, unwanted homosexual or heterosexual advances can be used as a partial provocation defence to violent crimes.
Pearce was sentenced in 2010 to nine years’ imprisonment, while his co-accused Richard John Meerdink received 10 years.
On July 9, Pearce was granted parole and released from jail.
Meerdink will be eligible for parole in 2016.
Fr Kelly said the Government response to requests to change the law was that “changes last year were adequate and that the law’s effectiveness should now be allowed to be tested in court”.
“Surely we don’t want to wait until another case such as the one in Maryborough occurs again,” he said.
He plans to take the petition to Mr Newman “in the next couple of weeks”.
