The monster responsible for the savage murder of Melbourne woman Courtney Herron has launched a secret bid to ban reports publicly identifying him as her killer, in part because it is affecting his mental health.
Daily Mail Australia can reveal that taxpayer-funded lawyers acting on behalf of Henry Hammond have applied to the Supreme Court of Victoria for a suppression order which they hope will prohibit his name from being publicly released again.
Hammond, 32, was found not guilty of the murder of the 25-year-old by reason of mental disability in August 2020.
He had been charged with murder the day after three dog walkers found Ms Herron’s body among logs in Parkville’s Royal Park, on the outskirts of Melbourne’s CBD, a year earlier.
Hammond had beaten her to death with a branch before attempting to bury her body under piles of leaves and branches.
Lawyers from Victorian Legal Aid, a state government-funded agency that provides taxpayer-funded legal representation to struggling residents, plan to apply for a suppression order on November 11 on Hammond’s behalf under the provisions of the secret crimes. (mental deficiency and fitness to stand trial). ) Law of 1997.
Unlike Victoria’s Open Courts Act, the VLA is not required to inform media agencies of its intentions, meaning the application would likely have gone unopposed if it had not been discovered by this publication.
Daily Mail Australia can reveal that Hammond was able to convince VLA lawyers that the gag order imposed by the court was justified because his mental health and rehabilitation were being affected by continued media reports about him.
Courtney Herron was brutally murdered by Henry Hammond, who was later found not guilty by reason of mental disability.
Henry Hammond wants his name to disappear from history so he can secretly go free
In September of last year, Hammond had been repeatedly released on supervised day leave from the secure psychiatric hospital where he was supposed to spend 25 years.
Multiple sources confirmed Hammond had been enjoying freedom, with grainy photographs showing him dining at restaurants along Station Street in Fairfield, near Thomas Embling Hospital in Melbourne’s northeast.
The footage appeared to show Hammond dining at Matsuya Japanese Restaurant, a hangout frequented by Hammond’s victim and his friends before he brutally took her life.
The application to suppress Hammond’s name will be carried out without any input from the Victorian Public Prosecution Service, which is not a party to the proceedings.
The order, unless successfully opposed by the media, will likely be issued “in the name of the public interest.”
The request has infuriated Mrs Herron’s long-suffering father, John Herron, who has fought in vain to achieve some justice for his dead daughter.
John Herron now only has memories of his daughter to hold on to. He remains focused on bringing her justice.
John Herron and his daughter Courtney when she was just a child
John Herron and Courtney in happier times. She was brutally murdered by Henry Hammond.
Herron, a criminal defense lawyer, took aim at Victorian Prime Minister Jacinta Allan’s government, calling it a disgrace.
“Once again, as predicted, the Victorian government is likely to let loose killers on the streets of Melbourne, and particularly killers of young women,” he told Daily Mail Australia.
“The Victorian Government is questioning why female casualties are increasing, which is directly linked to the fact that more high-risk offenders are being left on the streets, which inevitably leads to women being murdered. “.
Herron said the government’s inaction made a mockery of its denunciation of the men’s behavior.
“The increase in women murdered is directly linked to the type of perpetrators continually released onto the streets of Victoria,” she said.
‘For many years this was always the government’s planned path and it makes a mockery of the Victorian justice system when, as far as Thomas Embling is concerned, no one serves his designated 25-year term. The average is three to four years.
“The sentencing of these murderers constitutes a complete farce.”
Prime Minister Allan did not respond to questions from Daily Mail Australia before deadline.
Herron further targeted VLA, who suggested he had more important matters to deal with than representing Hammond’s whims.
‘This application is funded by Victoria Legal Aid, in other words the taxpayer. “Victoria Legal Aid is actually very scarce for people who need it at the moment, but there is no qualms about allocating resources and funds to allow killers to be released early and inevitably end up attacking more women on the streets,” she said.
Tributes at the scene where Courtney Herron was killed in 2019
Henry Hammond had a shocking history of violence against women before killing Courtney Herron
Herron said Hammond had a long history of attacking women before killing his daughter.
“He has shown no remorse and in fact, according to the information, has not changed in any way,” he said.
Hammond, the homeless son of a wealthy Sydney banker, should never have been released onto the streets to kill.
Just months before killing Herron, he had been released from prison on a community service order after a judge ruled his 10-month sentence for assaulting another woman in August 2018 was “manifestly excessive.”
Then came the frantic attack on Herron, in which his head was crushed in an assault that lasted nearly an hour.
Hammond told doctors that he had believed he was the Norse god Odin and that he feared that Herron, a woman he had just met, was possessed and would kill him.
Henry Hammond was spotted enjoying a meal at Japanese restaurant Matsuya last year.
Football great Sam Newman once interviewed Hammond on The Footy Show
The audience will never know if and when Henry Hammond walks among them again.
Herron said the public had a right to know when deranged killers were allowed back into the community, whether under escort or at full liberty.
“Let’s make no mistake in saying that these suppression requests are simply designed for the early release of these high-level perpetrators and this is the mechanism they are going through,” he said.
‘As is typical in the Victorian Government, visibility and information about the release of these killers is completely absent and the public is completely in the dark.
‘Victoria’s use of suppression orders is unparalleled in Australia and more than 50 per cent of suppression orders across the country emanate from Victoria.
“Suppression orders are not designed to protect the victims who come last and suffer at the hands of these perpetrators or even the future victims that are likely to occur with the flooding of these people onto the streets of Victoria.”
Daily Mail Australia has been told that reports of Hammond’s day trips from Thomas Embling caused management to quickly halt them “until the heat died down”.
Hammond is not the first murderer to walk free from Thomas Embling on the day of his release, or to be released secretly.
Thomas Embling psychiatrists have previously told Victorian courts they believe releasing killers into the community is best for their rehabilitation.
Crazed killers are known to frequent Fairfield Park Boathouse & Tea Gardens (pictured)
Courtney Herron had shown kindness to Hammond. He returned the favor by beating her to death.
However, many Victorian judges believe that informing the community – or the murderers’ victims – of such releases is not in the best interests of the murderers and suppress any trace of doing so.
Daily Mail Australia is aware that at least one savage killer has been found not guilty of murder by reason of mental disability in recent times and has already been allowed to return to the community on supervised release.
Hammond was brutally beaten by another patient inside Thomas Embling just before Christmas 2021.
A knowledgeable source said the savage beating left Hammond in hospital, which in turn landed him in Thomas Embling’s “transitional unit” upon his return.
The unit facilitates daytime discharges of patients and prepares them for imminent release.
Hammond is understood to have impressed staff within the unit, prompting the hospital to soften its stance on temporarily releasing him back into the community with a view to fully releasing him.
