‘Just Say Goodbye’ (January 2013 online edition)

‘Just Say Goodbye’with him while Rachelle stood close by. Ramazan asked Rachelle if he couldtake Yazmina to a nearby milk bar for some chocolate, promising he wouldbring her straight back. Rachelle reluctantly agreed.Shortly after Ramazan left with Yazmina he began a series of texts and phonecalls taunting Rachelle about their whereabouts. He asked Rachelle to go to thepolice station and withdraw her statements in relation to the intervention order.When she refused, he became angry and ended the phone call.When Rachelle phoned back, he said: ‘Payback’s a bitch. How does it feel?’When she pleaded with him to return Yazmina he replied: ‘Guess what baby, you’renot getting her back. I loved you Rachelle, and look what you’ve made me do.’ 48He then asked her whether he should drive at 120 kilometres an hour into anoncoming car or use the knife and put it through Yazmina’s throat. He told her, ‘Iloved you more than her, and that’s why I am doing this’ and then ended the call.Ramazan then posted a message on his Facebook page: ‘Bout 2 kill ma kid.’After this he sent Rachelle a text message saying ‘It’s ova I did it’ (although hehad not yet killed Yazmina). He then posted a Facebook message: ‘Pay bk uslut’. 49By this stage, Rachelle was at the police station and the calls were onspeakerphone in the presence of police. Ramazan told Rachelle ‘I’m going tokill her’. Rachelle begged him to return her, to which he replied ‘Do you haveany last words for her?’ Yazmina came on the phone and said to her mother,‘I love you’, and Rachelle, weeping, replied ‘I love you too’. 50 Ramazan thenended the call.Shortly after, in another phone call, Ramazan told Rachelle:I’ve killed her, she’s just lying there next to me … All I need to know isshould I dump the body somewhere and how much time do you think I amgoing to get for this? I killed her, man, I killed her. I killed her to get back atyou. I don’t care. Even if I go behind bars, I know that you are suffering. 51Ramazan continued phoning and texting Rachelle in relation to killingYazmina until he was arrested later that evening.At the sentencing hearing, his legal counsel said that on the day of Yazmina’sdeath Ramazan had been ruminating on his place in his daughter’s life and thathe could see himself being ‘squeezed out of it’ and that he was constrained bythe intervention order. 5248 R v Acar [2011] VSC 310 (para 10).49 R v Acar [2011] VSC 310 (para 11).50 R v Acar [2011] VSC 310 (para 12).51 R v Acar [2011] VSC 310 (para 13).52 R v Acar [2011] VSC 310 (para 35). Counsel also referred to the fact that Rachelle was moving on with her life(she had met another man) as a factor in Ramazan’s ruminations.39