Troy Maskell has been sentenced to seven years and nine months over the assault death of postmaster John Burke and must spend a minimum of four years and eight months behind bars.
Maskell was jailed for eight years in 2023, with a non-parole period of five, after being found guilty of manslaughter in his first trial.
The 47-year-old looked straight ahead as Victorian Supreme Court Justice James Elliott handed down his revised jail term on Tuesday.
Justice Elliott said his decision was based on Maskell's good behaviour and rehabilitation while in prison from the previous sentence.
But he said the "unprovoked and gratuitous violence at vulnerable members of our community" must be denounced.
He was found guilty of manslaughter for a second time by a Victorian Supreme Court jury in a retrial of his unprovoked attack on Mr Burke.
The 73-year-old postmaster lived alone at the back of his Strathmerton post office in northern Victoria and would often pop into the local service station to chat with the attendant.
On August 8, 2021, an intoxicated Maskell walked into the store around midnight with his partner and daughter, whom Mr Burke greeted as he chatted to staff.Â
Maskell's partner called Mr Burke a pedophile, before Maskell picked up a one-litre bottle of sports drink and threw it at Mr Burke's head, causing him to fall.
He then walked over to Mr Burke and kicked him as he lay on the tiled floor.
Mr Burke died in hospital 11 weeks later from a brain injury.
His sister Suzanne Heppell recounted how his slow agonising death was a horrific and catastrophic event that damaged her emotionally and psychologically.
Mr Burke had been optimistic in the days after the attack, expressing a belief he would be out of hospital in a few days and back running the post office, his sister recounted.
But after suffering two strokes in hospital, his health deteriorated to the point where he lost the ability to move, communicate, or recognise anyone and was paralysed down his right side.
"One minute John was alive, next he was lying paralysed, unable to communicate, locked in his frozen body," Ms Heppell said.
"I see Strathy being likened to a jigsaw, with John being a significant piece in that jigsaw. That piece was taken away from this very small, tight community."
Maskell successfully appealed his original convictions when a Victorian Court of Appeal board found there had been a substantial miscarriage of justice and ordered a fresh trial in July 2025.
20°C