National Crime Agency terrorist Domenic Perre is likely to die in prison after being jailed for life for the deadly 1994 blast.
Justice Kevin Nicholson upheld the 65-year-old’s mandatory life sentence in the South Australian Supreme Court this morning for murder and attempted murder.
Detective Geoffrey Bowen died of horrific injuries when the package bomb built and sent by Perre exploded in his Adelaide office in 1994.
Domenic Perre has been jailed for life for the deadly NCA attack in Adelaide in 1994. (9News)
Lawyer Peter Wallis, who was nearby, lost an eye and suffered severe burns in the blast. He died in 2018.
With Perre already behind bars for drug offences, Nicholson extended his non-parole period by 30 years and seven months.
This means that the 65-year-old will be over 95 before he can apply for release.
Nicholson said Perre’s killing of an on-duty police officer was violent, barbaric and merciless.
“Your conduct was brutal. This is completely devoid of any human sensibility,” the judge said.
“Your conduct was motivated by matters that do not deserve you.
“Not only was it premeditated, it was intricately conceived and planned over a long period of time and executed in cold blood.”
Jane Bowen Sutton, widow of Geoffrey Bowen, speaking after the sentencing. (AP)
Victims’ families can “come forward.”
After watching from the public gallery, Bowen’s widow Jane Bowen-Sutton said the sentence, along with the perseverance and hard work of investigators, had “brought justice to our beloved Geoff and Peter Wallis”.
“Although our loss is immeasurable, this result serves to provide acceptable peace of mind for our tragic loss,” he said.
“We hope our beloved Geoff can rest in peace.”
Bowen’s brother Simon said whether Perre’s non-parole period was appropriate would be discussed in the coming weeks.
“But I’m glad that someone so evil is in prison and that person remains in prison for what I think will be the rest of their life,” he said.
Genevieve Wallis, Wallis’ daughter, said Perre’s prison sentence could never bring Bowen back or remove her father’s mental and physical scars.
“But it’s justice and it’s retribution,” he said.
“It is in recognition of the suffering endured by the Bowens and the Wallis since Domenic Perre sent a bomb to the NCA.
“This ruling allows our families to move forward.”
The mail wallet used to deliver the bomb. (Police SA)
Handing down his guilty verdicts in June this year, Nicholson found Perre intended to kill Bowen or anyone else who opened the package or was nearby when it detonated.
“Mr Perre wanted to kill Mr Bowen but he intended the NCA bomb to do its job and kill whoever it did,” the judge said.
Perre was first charged with murder shortly after the attack, but the case against him was dropped six months later for lack of evidence.
Detective Sergeant Geoffrey Bowen was killed in the blast. (9 News)
He was arrested again in 2018 after a joint investigation, which lasted more than two years, by several state and federal authorities, including the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.
In an incredibly detailed and complex case, prosecutors argued that the bombing was a personal attack on Bowen.
They said Perre’s hostility towards him had grown because of their interactions following the seizure of a multimillion-dollar cannabis crop in the Northern Territory in August 1993.
Perre was initially arrested shortly after the attack, but was released due to lack of evidence. (Fairfax Archive)
Bowen’s son Simon, who followed in his father’s footsteps into policing, was just seven at the time of the blast.
“I struggle with the motive and the relevance of your actions,” she told Perre in a victim impact statement last month.
“You’ve caused so much irreparable damage and so much suffering so you can grow some dope and walk around South Australia like a gangster with your big black glasses on.”
Bowen-Sutton said her husband was killed on their ninth wedding anniversary and she had experienced endless pain.
The explosion blew open the NCA building and Detective Geoffrey Bowen died from horrific injuries. (Police SA)
“That day I told my seven- and five-year-old children that their father, whom they loved very much, had been killed and that we would never see him again. I have relived that conversation for 28 years,” she said.
Genevieve Wallis, who was eight when her father was injured, said the attack had left her traumatised, depressed and weakened.
“The bombing had shattered any sense of safety, belonging and privilege of being a child and it hurts me that there is such a blatant disregard for human life within another human,” Wallis said.
Defense barrister Gilbert Aitken told the court Perre sympathized with the victims’ families but maintained his innocence.
He has filed an appeal against his convictions.