MOTHER’S DYING WISH

VICTIM WANTS ATTACKER LOCKED AWAY FOREVER

NOTORIOUS criminal Gavin Raymond McIntosh should be locked away for the rest of his life, says Megan Sullivan, whose recovery from a life-threatening condition is at risk because of his brutality.

In 2009 McIntosh bashed the young woman’s head with an iron bar during a home invasion in Austins Ferry.

Ms Sullivan’s medical prognosis is the latest blow since the attack that has shattered her life and left her calling for justice.

This month the 28-year-old mother of three young children was diagnosed with a rare and severe lung disease that can be treated with an organ transplant. But because of the head injuries McIntosh inflicted on Ms Sullivan, right, surgery is considered “very high risk”.

“They don’t think I’ll cope with surgery,” she said.

The assessment is based on her experience giving birth, after the attack, which ended in a“code blue” medical emergency and a need for her to be resuscitated.

Ms Sullivan believes McIntosh has stolen the valuable years she might have had with her young children had she been able to have a successful transplant.

She is renewing calls for him to be declared a dangerous criminal and to never to be released.

“I’ve always protected my kids and if I don’t have long to live and die on an operating table, I just want justice.”

“I want them to lock him away forever.”

In November 2009 McIntosh and two others stormed the home of Ms Sullivan and her then partner.

Wearing balaclavas and armed with metal bars, pieces of wood, a rake and a shovel they brutalised the couple in their bed.

During the unprovoked attack Ms Sullivan was struck multiple times to the head with an iron bar by McIntosh and Blaze Christian Roberts. Her partner was viciously set on.

Ms Sullivan was left fighting for her life in the intensive care unit at the Royal Hobart Hospital.

McIntosh, who was the ring leader, was sentenced to eight years’ jail while Roberts and Jye Mark Baldwin were sentenced to six and four years re- spectively. McIntosh’s earliest release date is October next year and Ms Sullivan is seeking to make sure that never happens.

Since the attack she has been regularly intimidated, including threats she would be shot if she testified against McIntosh, and she is worried what will happen when he gets out.

“I’m scared but I want to stand up for all the women he’s bashed,” she said.

“I’ve got nothing to lose, I’m going to die anyway.”

In 2012 the Crown launched a bid to have McIntosh declared a dangerous criminal that would have seen him detained indefinitely.

The Crown used his repeated acts of violence towards women as a basis for keeping him locked up beyond his release date.

This included smashing a woman across the face with a table leg in front of her fouryear-old daughter in 2008.

The following year he bashed a woman while trying to track down a drug dealer.

When he found the second woman, he bashed her unconscious and set fire to her car.

Despite expert evidence he would likely remain a high risk forever, the court rejected the application because his future behaviour could not be predicted with certainty.

A quirk in the law means applications for a dangerous criminal declaration can only be made at the time of sentencing.

But the State Government is working to change the legislation, meaning Ms Sullivan’s quest to have one of the state’s most dangerous criminals indefinitely detained is now a race against time.

“The Government remains committed to updating the state’s Dangerous Criminal provisions to better protect Tasmanians,” a Government spokesman said. “This is a very complex area of law reform and we continue to take advice from numerous sources on the prospective changes.”

I’m scared but I want to stand up for all the women he’s bashed

MEGAN SULLIVAN