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A killer who performed sickening acts with his victim’s body and decapitated him will stay behind bars thanks to new laws.
James Patrick Roughan was convicted of murdering homeless teenager Morgan Jay Shepherd in 2005 and sentenced to life in prison in 2008, which would have previously seen him eligible for parole at the 15-year mark of his sentence.
However, the Parole Board of Queensland announced on Monday it had extended Roughan’s non-parole term until at least April 2027 under tough laws brought in by state government in 2021.
The shocking details of Roughan’s and co-offender Christopher Clark Jones’ crime were revealed in a 2009 hearing outlining how they stabbed Shepherd 133 times, mutilated his body and decapitated him at a Sandgate home, north of Brisbane.
A witness said Jones told him Roughan ‘put his hand up the neck of the severed head of the deceased as if it were a puppet’ and put the deceased’s head on a stake in the back yard before ‘rolling it down’ a hill like a bowling ball.
James Patrick Roughan was given a life sentence for the grisly murder of 17-year-old homeless teen Morgan Jay Shepherd
The teenager was finally found in a shallow grave in bushland at Dayboro in April 2005 after an anonymous tip-off led police to the body.
Shepherd’s body was found mutilated with a pathologist detailing 51 wounds to the left leg, 68 to the right leg, 10 stab wounds to the buttocks, three to the upper back and one to the abdomen.
Police also found a woodsaw, carpet and bloodstained clothes at the home where Mr Shepherd was murdered.
While neither man admitted to killing the teenager, a witness testified Jones later bragged about his crime, which followed an argument he had with the victim.
‘Chris said he stomped on him a bit and then grabbed a knife from the kitchen, stabbed him in the back, stabbed him a few times and then gave the knife to James and James stabbed him a few times,’ the witness told the Supreme Court in 2007.
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‘Then James cut the head and Chris pulled it off. James was nodding … (he) had a little smirk on his face. Chris was making a joke of the situation.’
Police also found a woodsaw, carpet and bloodstained clothes at the home where Shepherd was murdered
The judge who presided over the trial said the teenager’s murder was the worst case she had ever heard.
Parole Board president Michael Byrne KC said the decision to declare Roughan a restricted prisoner meant his application for parole submitted in 2020 was deferred under the Act and was also refused.
Mr Byrne the decisions were made with regard to the ‘the nature, seriousness and circumstances of the offence for which the prisoner was sentenced to life imprisonment’.
The board said they also took into account ‘the risk the prisoner may pose to the public if the prisoner is granted parole’, ‘the likely effect that the prisoner’s release on parole may have on an eligible person or a victim’,
Under the 2021 crackdown Roughan is the seventh Queensland inmate to be declared a restricted prisoner.
A person convicted of murdering a child or murdering multiple people can be barred from applying for parole for up to 10 years beyond their eligibility date and this can be repeated multiple times.
Roughan’s co-offender Christopher Clark Jones (pictured left) was released on parole in 2020 but deported to Britain
It was reported in July, 2020 that despite Jones being sentenced to life in prison he had been released on parole but deported back to Britain.
There he was seen living in an expensive hotel at the expense of taxpayers while living it up as a free man.
Jones, who was born in the northern English city of Tyneside moved to Australia as a child but never took up citizenship in his adopted home..
He had his visa was cancelled by Morrison government Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton because he was ‘considered to not be of good character’.
