Relatives of 11 nursing home patients who died after carer Roger Dean lit two fires can rest assured he will die in jail. The mass murderer lost his bid to challenge his life sentences in the High Court. Before losing his challenge in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal last December, some relatives had described the great stress they suffered every time the matter resurfaced in a courtroom. The then 37-year-old, a registered nurse for 15 years, pleaded guilty to murdering the patients at Quaker’s Hill nursing home in Sydney’s west in November, 2011. He lit two fires after discovering police were investigating his theft of 200 prescription pills from the home. He received 11 life sentences in 2013. His barrister Tim Game SC argued various grounds in the High Court, including criticising “the structure” of the sentence imposed. But Kara Shead, for the Crown, submitted that after taking into account the evidence in this case — no matter what processes were involved — “no other conclusion could have been reached”. The two judges, sitting in Sydney, refused to give him the go-ahead to appeal, concluding there would be no prospects that a challenge would be successful.
