Benjamin Bourke sentenced to 10 years in jail for attempted murder

A man who tried to kill a teenage girl who he hunted her “like an animal” with a compound bow and arrow in an Aldi supermarket will spend the next 10 years and six months in jail.

Benjamin Jeremy Bourke, 28, pleaded guilty in Brisbane Supreme Court of Australia on Wednesday to the attempted murder of the teenage girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons at an Aldi shopping center in Booval, west of Brisbane, in September 2020.

Crown Prosecutor Matt Le Grand told the court Bourke had armed himself with the compound bow, two knives and three small sledge hammers when he left his Bundamba home on September 20, 2020.

The court heard Bourke had an argument with his housemate earlier in the day and decided to end his life.

Le Grand said his solution was to get the police to shoot him and he constructed a plan to achieve that goal.

“He decided to take a life, he just didn’t know which life he would take,” Le Grand said.

The court heard Bourke had made his way on foot while wearing a mask, hoodie and full length pants.

CCTV footage played in court showed Bourke walking from Booval Railway Station along South Station Rd armed with a compound bow.

Le Grand said Bourke had considered “choosing” to shoot a mother who was with her small child “as his target” but decided to find someone else to attack.

The CCTV footage also showed Bourke firing his compound bow at an Indigenous woman who was jogging nearby but the arrow missed her.

“His reason for (shooting at her) was that the woman was indigenous and he didn’t like indigenous (people),” Le Grand said.

Le Grand said Bourke continued onto the shopping precinct as “there would be more witnesses at the shops.”

“Causing an alarm was part of Mr. Bourke’s plan,” he said.

“It’s when he reached the Aldi shop, he found his target.”

The court heard the teenage girl was locking her bike on the street when Bourke spotted her.

He walked up to her and removed his mask and said “I’ll let you see who I am first” before he shot his compound bow, firing an arrow that narrowly missed her.

Le Grand said the girl entered the Aldi store in an effort to escape but Bourke “pursued” and released another arrow which grazed her right arm.

CCTV footage shows Bourke stalking the girl around the store as she tried to hide behind a pallet.

He shot at her again, this time penetrating her left hand, phone and upper torso causing an injury to her fingers and chest.

The girl managed to escape his sight and showed her injury to a customer, as the arrow could still be seen lodged into her torso.

Bourke can then be seen approaching the girl from behind in one of the aisles and shooting at her again but misses.

The girl runs away again and manages to find another customer who shields her from Bourke as he continues to calmly stalk around the store.

Bourke fires one more arrow at the girl but misses.

Le Grand said Bourke, while armed with a small sledgehammer, then walked up to the girl asking for his arrow back but she refused.

Bourke then puts his weapons on the ground as he tries to speak to the girl, while other customers continue to wander the store.

Two men then approach him and tackle him to the ground before police arrive.

Other members of the public had been seen fleeing the store when they saw Bourke carrying the compound bow.

The court heard the entire incident lasted about four to five minutes from the second Bourke chose the girl as his intended victim to when he was tackled to the ground.

Le Grand said Bourke had shown a “selfish mindset” on that day and lack of remorse since the attack.

“She was hunted like an animal around the store for about four minutes,” he said.

“The offense is protracted, it was persistent and could have easily had other consequences and indeed that was Mr. Bourke’s intent.”

“This was a premeditated and purposeful attack, the offending occurred in public.”

“Therefore it’s not just an example of violence in public but violence deliberately in public.”

The court heard Bourke had been diagnosed with mixed personality disorder and was a regular cannabis user.

Le Grand said while these health issues were a “contributing factor” to his offending, Bourke was well aware of his actions and their consequences.

“He was able to express his thought process in deciding his ultimate target,” he said.

“The fact that he was able to decide not to target the woman with the child and proceed the consequences of that course, if he’d embarked upon killing that woman who had the baby, demonstrates he was able to reason properly about difference”.

Le Grand said Bourke has never inquired about the girl’s health following the attack despite “multiple opportunities to express remorse.”

The court heard Bourke had read the victim impact statements last week.

“Upon reflection on those things he instructed me he is sorry,” Bourke’s defense barrister, Charlotte Smith, said.

“That’s the first occasion that’s been expressed.”

Smith told the court her client’s mental health had played a role in the attack in Aldi and “it’s less likely the offending would have occurred in the first place” if he hadn’t been dealing with those issues.

Justice Tom Sullivan sentenced Bourke to 10 years and six months in jail.

The 946 days he’s already served in custody will be taken into account in his service.

“This was not a crime of passion, or immediacy, it was a series of events over time,” Justice Sullivan said.

He added that he took into account Bourke’s mental health condition when sentencing but ultimately found he was aware of his actions that day.

“There was a connection between those matters and the offending on this day however again consistent with the opinion expressed by (the psychiatrist’s report) it seems that you were cognitive of what was right and wrong and you had the ability in effect to control yourself and to know what you were doing,” he said.