Eileen Culleton
Homicide victim advocate Eileen Culleton is calling for national law reform for mandatory life sentencing without parole for the crime of rape and murder.
She is also calling for rape and murder to be a stand alone crime to reflect the gravity of the crime and to enable specific mandatory sentencing.
See Petition
Rape and Murder Victim Anne-Marie Culleton
Anne-Marie Culleton was raped and murdered on 23 February 1988 in Darwin by Jonathan Peter Bakewell, 26, who broke into her flat in the middle of the night when she was sleeping. She was strangled with her own bed sheet.
Anne-Marie was only 20 when her life was brutally cut short. In the last few weeks of Anne-Marie’s life she had reached a turning point of independence. She had a job, a car, and five weeks prior, she had moved out of home into her first flat. She had hopes and dreams that she was excited about.
Anne-Marie was a kind, beautiful, talented young woman with a bright future ahead of her. With dreams she never got to realise.
Rapist murderer Jonathan Bakewell
Jonathan Bakewell broke down Anne-Marie Culleton’s back door to rape and murder her in her bed. He strangled her with her own bedsheet. He inflicted a cruel, sadistic, torturous rape and murder on his victim.
Bakewell then washed her body in scalding hot water and left her in the shower with her face and neck wedged down and the hot water running in order to hide evidence and advance body decomposition. This is how Anne-Marie’s mother and sister found her 40 hours later.
Bakewell removed his shoes and wore his socks when he broke down Anne-Marie’s back door, in order to prevent footprints. After the rape and murder he meticulously wiped down the entire flat; the floor, door handles, light switches, with another sheet to erase finger prints.
He had the arrogance to say to the detective when he was arrested, “You didn’t find any prints did you, I know you didn’t.” 1
Bakewell’s rape and strangulation of Anne-Marie Culleton was a shocking crime which fits the profile of a calculated sadistic rapist murderer. It also fits the profile of a serial killer. 2
Despite being given a life sentence with no parole in 1989, Bakewell was later granted parole after law changes in the Northern Territory to give non parole periods to life sentence prisoners.
Since his release in 2016 in South Australia (where he was transferred while in prison), Bakewell repeatedly breached parole for drug taking, the same drugs he took when he raped and murdered Anne-Marie. Yet the Parole Board kept releasing him.
Currently Bakewell is behind bars, but he can reapply for parole again in September 2023 and every 12 months for the rest of his life.
Eileen believes Bakewell must never be released and she has vowed to continue to fight to ensure he stays behind bars.
Background to Eileen’s campaign for Bakewell’s parole to be cancelled after repeated drug breaches
Eileen mounted a two and a half year campaign in 2019 calling for Bakewell’s parole to be cancelled after he repeatedly breached parole for taking drugs – the same drugs he took the night he raped and murdered Anne-Marie Culleton.
Eileen’s campaign was finally successful when on 26 October 2021 the South Australia Parole Board finally cancelled Bakewell’s parole after he was arrested for his sixth drug breach.
In March 2019 Eileen first appealed to the politicians, writing to the former South Australian Premier Stephen Marshall, former Attorney General Vicki Chapman and former Police and Correctional Services Minister, Corey Wingard calling for urgent action.
In the meantime Bakewell breached parole for the fourth time for taking drugs and in April 2019 he was sent back to custody pending a hearing.
When her letters to the politicians were dismissed, with Bakewell’s parole hearing scheduled for June 2019, Eileen spoke to the media for the first time in 31 years.
She spoke first to the Sunday Mail:
She then spoke to the radio, FiveAA Breakfast presenters David Penberthy and Will Goodings:
In July 2019 Eileen also contacted the SA Opposition and they asked questions in the SA Parliament of then Premier Marshall.
Thank you SA Labor @alpsa @PictonChris for calling the government to account on Tuesday and standing up for #WomensSafety and #VictimsRights after the Premier ignored my letter #KeepBakewellBehindBars #CancelParole #Adelaide #QuestionTime #Q3 #saparli pic.twitter.com/1YdcySGXGX
— Eileen Culleton (@EileenCulleton) July 25, 2019
Bakewell’s parole hearing was deferred to October. In the meantime Eileen was contacted by members of the public who had come into contact with him and were alarmed at his behaviours and had written to the parole board calling for his parole to be revoked. Eileen made a 53 page submission to the parole board which she copied to the politicians and others, calling for the revocation of Bakewell’s parole and for an urgent review of the SA parole board.
In October 2019 Eileen mounted another media campaign, speaking on the TV news for the first time.
Unfortunately Eileen’s initial campaign was not successful, her urgent pleas fell on deaf ears and Bakewell was released for the fifth time on 18 October 2019.
Yet Eileen did not give up and was fortified by new information she received from the community during her campaign that reinforced her belief that Bakewell is as dangerous today as the day he raped and murdered Anne-Marie Culleton.
In May 2021 Bakewell was arrested again over a 5th potential drug breach, and while in custody tested positive for cannabis, which he tried to blame on passive smoking from his cellmate.
ABC 5 May 2021 Read more >>
Shockingly the SA Parole Board once again gave Bakewell the benefit of the doubt and he was once again released back into the community.
There was strong media backlash once again.
Eileen called once again for an urgent review and overhaul of the SA Parole Board and for increased transparency and accountability for parole board decisions.
Eileen’s history advocating for community safety
Eileen has a history of advocating for community safety locally and globally.
She was the Founder and CEO of the Emergency 2.0 Wiki, a not for profit global resource for using social media and new technologies in emergencies. Eileen galvanised the Government 2.0 in Queensland Community of Practice to form a collaboration, knowledge sharing and crowdsourcing Emergency 2.0 Wiki community.
This extended across Australia and across the globe, encompassing professionals from the private, government, and community sectors and forming alliances with organisations such as the Business Continuity Institute of Australasia and global NGOs Virtual Operations Support Group (VOSG) and Humanity Road. The Wiki also supported the European Union Program West Yorkshire Police Athena Project to empower citizens and protect communities.
Driving policy change
As CEO of the Emergency 2.0 Wiki Eileen helped drive policy change globally to accelerate government use of social media in disasters.
Eileen advocated to ensure the United Nations Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015:2030 – the global blueprint to build the world’s resilience to disasters – incorporated social media3,4
Her advocasy involved presenting at IDRC 2014, a disaster risk conference organised by the Global Risk Forum in cooperation with the United Nations Office for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) to inform the new Framework. Her presentation was sponsored by the Attorney-General’s Department Emergency Management Australia. As well as the presentation, Eileen made a Red Chair Statement and submitted a research paper. 5 The Emergency 2.0 Wiki was decommissioned in 2018.
Our work & recommendations for Post 2015 Disaster Risk Reduction Framework #IDRC2014 #smem pic.twitter.com/txsyTEfAG3
— Emergency 2.0 Wiki (@emergency20wiki) August 28, 2014
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Voir Dire Appeal to prevent confession evidence being admitted to trial: R v Bakewell [1989] NTSC 68 (10 May 1989) p28 http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/nt/NTSC/1989/68.pdf
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Chapter 4 Murder by Manual and Ligature Strangulation, Profiling Crime Scene Behaviours and Offender Characteristics, Hakkanen, H. Criminal Profiling: International Theory, Research and Practice (73-87) 2007
- http://web.archive.org/web/20170202203356/http://emergency20wiki.org/20150325/new-un-global-framework-for-disaster-risk-reduction-contains-social-media
- https://www.preventionweb.net/files/43291_sendaiframeworkfordrren.pdf
- https://planet-risk.org/index.php/pr/article/view/175/348