Two men have been jailed for nine-and a half-years and a third to eight years for the manslaughter of an Irish teenager who died in Australia after he fell from an apartment balcony during an armed robbery.
Cian English (19), originally from Carlow town, but who lived in the Brisbane suburb of Hawthorne, suffered traumatic injuries when he fell from a fourth floor balcony at the View Pacific resort in Surfers Paradise in the early hours of Saturday, May 23, 2020. He had been spending a couple of days on the Gold Coast with a friend.
Jason Ryan Knowles (25), Hayden Paul Kratzmann (23) and Lachlan Paul Soper-Lagas (21) had been charged with murder but agreed to a plea deal of manslaughter.
Sentencing the three men, Chief Justice Helen Bowskill in the Queensland Supreme Court in Brisbane, said: “This is an absolutely tragic case. Your appalling, criminal conduct in the early hours of the morning, on 23 May 2020, resulted in the death of one young man, Mr Cian English, who was only 19 at the time.
“A young man, very much loved by his family and friends, who have suffered unfathomable grief and pain as result of his death, compounded by the awful circumstances in which that occurred. Your conduct also caused severe harm, in particular psychological harm, to a second young person, Mr Dzepo, also only 19 at the time.”
The judge continued that by entering pleas of guilty, each had taken responsibility for their actions and had facilitated the course of justice, including by saving the community the cost and the family of the victims and Mr Dzepo the trauma of a trial of these serious charges.
“None of you showed any remorse at the time of the offending. You all left the deceased where he lay and did nothing to help him, other than, half an hour later, you, Mr Kratzmann dialling 000, and providing incomplete and unhelpful information to emergency services,” she noted.
“It is fair to say that your other actions on that fateful morning negate anything positive that could be said about that, including all of you wearing and using the clothes and other things you’d stolen from these young men, and you posting a picture of that on Instagram, Mr Kratzmann, as though bragging about your prizes. Mr Soper-Lagas, you told the psychologist that you called an ambulance – but you did not.
“I feel sure that now, almost three-and-a-half years later, which you Mr Kratzmann and Mr Knowles have spent entirely in custody, and you Mr Soper-Lagas spent part of in custody, you bitterly regret your actions. And you now have all taken responsibility, by pleading guilty.
“For what it is worth, I am prepared to accept that, now, you are remorseful, in the sense of regretful and sorry for your actions. You have, in the course of this sentencing hearing, heard first hand from some of Mr English’s family members about the unbelievable anguish his death, and the circumstances of it, have caused them; and of the impact your actions had on Mr Dzepo.
“I can only hope that will have pierced your hearts, and brought home to you the enormity of the consequences of your actions, to be used by you in the future to guard against any repetition of those actions. In the eyes of Mr English’s family, there can be no more serious offence, as they have lost their loved one.”
The court heard that Mr English and his friend began chatting with the three accused outside while on their balconies. The Australian men invited the pair up to their apartment on the fourth floor where they were having a party with several others.
A party was amicable to begin with, the court heard, but prosecutor Caroline Marco said the atmosphere changed at 1.44am when Kratzmann started blaming Mr English and his friend of stealing their prescription and non-prescription drugs.
Mr English and his friend were subjected to physical and mental abuse by the three accused. Mr English was stabbed in the arm and his friend was hit on the head with the handle of a knife.
Ms Marco informed the court that Mr English ran to the apartment balcony while attempting to escape, before falling to his death.
Mr English’s family, including his mother Siobhán, father Vincent and brother Dylan, gave victim impact statements detailing how much they miss him, and suffer with the trauma and nightmares.
Kratazmann and Knowles were jailed for nine-and-a-half years, while Soper-Lagas was sentenced to eight years.
Two girls, who cannot be named for legal reasons, are alleged to have filmed the beating, stabbing and fatal fall of Mr English, subsequently posting a video of the events on social media. Their cases are due before the Supreme Court on October 25th.
