A Sydney cleaner who murdered and stabbed her senior client has been sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Key points:
- The judge found that the cleaning attack had an economic motivation
- Marjorie Welsh identified her attacker in the hospital bed, before dying from her injuries
- Mrs. Welsh’s daughters attended court and were pleased with the outcome of the sentence
Hanny Papanicolaou will not be eligible for parole until January 2034.
Papanicolaou broke into Marjorie Welsh’s Ashbury house in January 2019 with the intent to steal money from the 92-year-old.
Once she was discovered by Mrs. Welsh, the mother of two proceeded to hit her elderly client with her sticks before stabbing her several times with a kitchen knife.
Ms Welsh managed to alert the emergency services by pressing the alert button on a medical device she was wearing around her neck.
The 92-year-old woman initially survived the assault and identified her attacker as “Hanny, the cleaner.”
Angela MacLeod and Elizabeth Welsh, daughters of Marjorie Welsh, attended the court hearing today. (AAP: Bianca De Marchi)
Mrs Welsh died of her injuries at the hospital six weeks later.
Today, Judge Robertson Wright said Papanicolaou’s signs of true remorse and his good prospects for rehabilitation meant that the maximum life sentence was not adequate.
“The offender must be held accountable for his actions,” Judge Wright told the court.
“But I have also taken into account the purpose of the rehabilitation, which, in my view, allows for a longer period of parole.”
Papanicolaou stared at the ground and wept silently as his 22-year sentence was handed down for a period of 15 years without parole.
Her sentence will be backdated to include the full time since she was first arrested in January 2019.
Papanicolaou’s defense team had argued that the 38-year-old was not fully responsible for her actions, and highlighted suggestions from psychologists that she was suffering from a major depressive disorder prior to the attack.
The mother of two had a gambling addiction, losing about $ 400 to the Canterbury RSL poker machines a few hours before raiding Mrs Welsh’s home on 2 January.
Judge Wright rejected the suggestion that Papanicolaou had suffered from a major depressive disorder at the time of the attack, ruling that his actions were financially motivated.
“The offender needed the money because of his gambling losses,” he said.
“She knew Mrs. Welsh was paying in cash and had more than enough money to meet her own needs.”
Outside the court, Mrs Welsh’s daughters Angela and Elizabeth said they were pleased with the judge’s decision.
Posted 1 hour, 1 hour ago, Friday, May 27, 2022 at 2:05 AM, updated 11 m ago, 11 minutes ago, Friday, May 27, 2022 at 3:27 AM