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‘No Justice’: Ristevski sentence proves our legal system is letting us down

Alex Carlton |

It sends a rock-solid message to victims: you are not important


One of the most galling parts of today’s sentencing of Borce Ristevski for the manslaughter of his wife, Karen, was when Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale was explaining his views on the ‘seriousness’ of Karen’s death.

On one hand, he reasoned, Borce and Karen had been married for 27 years, which amplified the breach of trust that Borce broke when he killed her on the morning of June 29, 2016.

On the other, he countered, Borce had no previous history of family violence. Plus, he finished, because Borce has so far refused to reveal exactly how or why he killed his wife, it was impossible for Judge Beale to conclude whether the offence belonged in the realm of “high range” or “medium range” of manslaughter seriousness.

For more about the case, read the glowing character reference that Sarah gave her dad, and the measures Ristevski took to avoid detection. Read more stories like this at


Borce Ristevski with Karen (left) and their daughter Sarah. Photo: supplied

Serious, but not too serious

“I do not regard your silence as to how you killed your wife as providing a sufficiently firm basis for [inferring that your crime is] an upper range example of the offence of manslaughter,” Judge Beale said before he sentenced Borce Ristevski to just nine years’ jail with a non-parole period of six years for his wife’s killing. The maximum available sentence for the offence was 20 years.

“While community and the courts rightly abhor domestic violence it is simplistic to suppose that all domestic violence manslaughter cases necessarily fall into the upper range of the spectrum of seriousness for manslaughter.”

“It takes little imagination to think of circumstances where a domestic violence manslaughter, for example one involving a momentary loss of control and a comparatively low level of violence, could not reasonably be viewed as upper range example of the offence of manslaughter.”

In other words, because Borce refuses to say exactly how brutally or violently Karen’s life ended, how much she suffered at his hands in her final moments, and whether or not he killed her after a sustained fight or simply because of a ‘loss of control’, our only option is to file Karen Ristevski’s death in the ‘serious but not too serious’ box.

This is why, time and time again, Australians feel that their justice system is letting them down.

with daughter

Ristevski appeared before media in the days after Karen's disappearance, appealing for his wife to come home. Photo: News Corp

The last time Sarah would see her mother alive

To hear one of the country’s most senior arbiters of justice blandly debate the ‘seriousness’ – or lack of - of a man killing his wife of 27 years, the devoted mother their daughter Sarah, is difficult to stomach. And to reward Borce Ristevski for his silence about exactly what went on the day he killed his wife by shaving time off his sentence, is simply unbelievable.

What we do know is that Karen life ended on the morning of June 29, 2016. Her daughter Sarah, 21 at the time, said goodbye both her parents before she left for work. It was the last time she would see her mother alive.

What exactly happened next is unknown. But we do know that Borce killed his wife shortly after, shoved her body into the boot of her own car and then left to find a place to dispose of it. We know that he turned his mobile phone off so that he could not be traced. He callously dumped Karen’s body in a secluded woodland area, roughly covering it with logs and leaves. And we know that he went on to spin, as the judge put it, a “web of deceit” for nearly three years afterwards.

On that very day, when Sarah returned from work, he lied and said he and Karen had had a fight and she had taken off.

He then joined the ranks of the killers who cry and lie, by fronting a press conference pleading for Karen’s safe return.

"The audacity he showed that day was difficult to watch"

And he even carried Karen’s casket at her funeral, an act that Karen’s former sister-in-law said she found unbearable. “The audacity he showed that day was difficult to watch,” Kerry Williams said in her victim impact statement. “And I will never forget that he had the nerve to do it while knowing that was the cause of all our pain.”

To most right-thinking Australians, no matter how violent Karen’s death was (or wasn’t), or whether or not her death was because Borce suffered a momentary lack of control (or not) is entirely beside the point. A man used his own brute force to take away the life of an innocent woman he was supposed to love and then stayed silent about it to protect himself.

That sounds plenty serious to most of us.

The consideration of whether or not it was a ‘momentary lack of control’ that killed Karen is also particularly appalling. It’s exactly these sorts of momentary ‘snaps’, from people who can’t control their anger, that kills. It’s violent men who need to learn to control that rage. Not women who need to accept that if they happen to die that way, the unfortunate reality is that their death will get bumped down the seriousness scale.

"We did not get justice today"

Karen’s family, who gasped audibly when the sentence was read out, were clearly devastated by today’s events.

“We did not get justice today,” Karen’s distraught brother Stephen Williams told reporters outside court. “As a society, in regard to domestic violence, we must, at some stage, take a stand.”

Judging by today’s overwhelming public outcry against Ristevski’s light sentencing, society is trying its damnedest to take a stand on behalf of Karen and other victims like her. It’s the courts and sentencing norms that aren’t keeping up.

“No wonder people keep losing confidence in our judiciary. This sentence is manifestly inadequate,” wrote Victorian MP Philip Dalidakis on Twitter.

“How do we have a mandatory 10 year sentence for a ‘one punch’ killing (which we should) but nothing like it for [killing] your wife?!” added the person behind the Twitter account for not-for-profit Share The Dignity. “Six years in jail for killing your wife? Complete BS.”

“Mr Andrews, with the weak sentencing of Borce Ristevski today, how do you explain this to your wife, daughter and every single woman in Victoria?” one man tweeted to Victorian premier Daniel Andrews. “You need to intervene to at least act like you care.”

Australians are tired of their courts dangling the promise of tough sentences for crimes as abhorrent as the one Borce Ristkevski inflicted on his wife, and then seemingly scrambling for every scrap of mitigation they can get their hands on to chip away at any time the perpetrator will serve. It sends a rock-solid message to victims: you are not important. And it sends another message, just as chilling, to would-be perpetrators: work the system right, and you’ll virtually get off scott-free.

“No sentence I can impose will undo the suffering you cause and continue to cause to those who loved Karen,” said Judge Beale as he finished his remarks in court today. This is true of course. But Australians are fast losing patience with lawmakers and the judiciary’s inability to mete out justice in a way that even slightly comforts grieving families or honours victims at all.