Policeman gets 20yrs for killing wife

By DAPHNE WANI
A POLICE officer was yesterday sent to jail for 20 years for killing his wife at a Port Moresby nightclub in Dec 2014.
Justice Panuel Mogish sentenced Paul Waliapu, from Wosara Gawi in East Sepik, in the Waigani National Court but removed a year and nine months from the jail term for the time he had spent in custody.
Waliapu will serve 18 and three months at Bomana prison.
Mogish, when sentencing Waliapu, said it was a result of domestic violence that  resulted in family breakdown.
Mogish said death had come about as a result of over indulgence of alcohol, a trend common to many crimes committed in the country.
“A deterrent sentence is called for – not only for personal deterrence for the offender but also to send a strong signal to likeminded individuals in the community that the courts will meet the acts of domestic violence with a substantial term of imprisonment.”  Mogish said.
He told the court that the Constitution was quite clear that everybody was the same and warned that any men who assaulted women did not deserve the chance to live.
Mogish also told Waliapu that the court understood the suffering that it would bring to his family and that his children would suffer, especially when they had nothing to do with the offence he had committed.
He told Waliapu that he had brought a lifetime of grief to his own children by killing their mother and it was an ungrateful thing he could give.