Convicted killer Justin Fuller will spend at least another two years in jail on top of his nine-year sentence for manslaughter for threatening to kill his former partner in a poem he sent to her from prison.
Fuller is serving a jail term of nine years for stabbing his half-sister's partner Guy McCulloch five times in a street in Belmont South in 2018. He was due to be eligible for release on parole in August 2024. The now 36-year-old was found not guilty of murder in 2020, but was convicted of manslaughter.
Fuller was charged again after he sent a letter from jail to his former partner which contained a threatening poem, and later pleaded guilty.
In a sentence hearing in the Newcastle District Court on Thursday, Judge Penny Hock stopped short of reading the poem out in court.
"The terms of the letter are extremely violent, menacing and explicit," Judge Hock said, before reading just a few lines from the poem: "Could I make killing you a form of art? Will the next time you're looking at me in the eyes be your time to die? "The day you die I will be on a high so until that day all I will say is tick tock, my little fox."
Judge Hock said she did not accept that the threats were 'veiled' as put to her by Fuller's defence counsel.
"The words were calculated to instil fear in the victim and understandably they succeeded," she said. "This is particularly so since [Fuller] was in custody for taking the life of another human being."
In a victim impact statement read to the court on Tuesday, January 31, the woman said she has lived in "constant fear" since receiving the letter in 2021 and Fuller had "taken all sense of feeling safe away from me".
"I was terrified, shaking with fear; I felt sick," the woman said. "I felt unsafe even though he was in prison."
Judge Hock said there were aggravating factors, including that Fuller committed the crime while in custody for a violent crime, leading to an increased need for general deterrence, but received a 25 per cent discount for his plea of guilty.
He was sentenced to four years and six months, which carries a maximum term of ten years, blowing his substantive sentence out to 12 years.
Judge Hock set a non-parole period of two years and ten months, partly concurrent, making Fuller eligible for release on parole on June 18, 2026.
- Support is available for those who may be distressed. Phone Lifeline 13 11 14; Mensline 1300 789 978; 1800-RESPECT 1800 737 732.
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