Teenager admits lie and avoids jail

A teenage girl who admitted lying to the police about the alleged murder of a fly-in, fly-out worker by members of a neo-nazi group has avoided jail and been granted a spent conviction in what a Supreme Court judge admitted was a light sentence.

Skye Elizabeth Dunn, 19, yesterday admitted being an accessory to the murder of 42-year-old Alan Taylor, who was found beaten to death in his Girrawheen bedroom in April last year.

WA’s Supreme Court was told that the four people accused of bashing Mr Taylor with a hammer as he slept — Melony Attwood, Robert Edhouse, Corey Dymock and a 17-year-old who cannot be named — were all connected to the white-supremacist, anti-Muslim Aryan Nations group.

Ms Attwood was Mr Taylor’s de facto partner but was also in a relationship with Mr Edhouse.

Mr Edhouse and Ms Attwood were leaders of the male and female arms of Aryan Nations, but the alleged murder of Mr Taylor was unconnected to the far-Right groups.

In fact, prosecutors allege it was a bid to profit from a $1 million life insurance policy Mr Taylor had on himself and Ms Attwood believed she would benefit from.

At a trial scheduled for next year, prosecutors will allege Mr Edhouse, Ms Attwood, Mr Dymock and their young accomplice took turns bashing Mr Taylor with a hammer, before ransacking the house to make it look like a burglary. They then went to a nearby cinema to try to create an alibi.

The court was told the quartet laughed as they later admitted the killing to Dunn, Mr Dymock’s girl-friend, who then lied to police to protect her partner.

A month later, she recanted her false statement, told police what she knew and promised to give evidence against the accused.

Yesterday Judge Lindy Jenkins said it was that promise, along with a guilty plea, that had led to a reduced sentence of a 16-month community-based order, and the spent conviction, which the judge said she had imposed only once before in 15 years on the bench.