When I suggest the death sentence be used this is the type of person who should go first.
By Liza Kappelle PERTH, Aug 21 AAP - A man serving an 18 year sentence for a savage rape which left a baby with catastrophic injuries pleaded guilty from prison today to attempting to steal a car - but claimed he did not do it. Charles Malcolm Punch, now 26, appeared in a Perth Magistrate's Court via video link today charged with attempting to steal a Ford Falcon sedan on January 4 last year. Punch told Magistrate Peter Malone he had not been trying to steal the car which police found him sitting drunkenly inside. But he said he wanted to plead guilty to get the matter over with. "I just looked in it," Punch said. "I weren't going to steal it, no way, but I'm pleading guilty." He was sentenced to three months jail to be served concurrently with the 18 year jail term he received on July 30 this year for the rape of an eight-month-old baby. The lengthy sentence was imposed on Punch due to the savage nature of the crime the itinerant with alcohol and drug problems committed on February 15 last year, just five weeks after the car incident. The District Court was told the baby would have psychological and medical problems for life after the rape that involved such force that grass was found in her stomach, which had been perforated. Surgery saved the baby's life but she will probably suffer faecal incontinence and be unable to have children. Now aged two years and three months, the child is in foster care. Two police officers required counselling after finding Punch lying beside the bloodied baby doing up his fly in a vacant block in near-city North Perth. AAP lk/cjh/br
