A CORONER IN Australia has said Irish woman Jill Meagher’s rape and murder was preventable.

Judge Ian Gray, who examined the circumstances of a number of murders by violent criminals over a six-month period, found that public safety was not prioritised by authorities dealing with dangerous parolees such as Adrian Bayley.

The Louth woman was murdered by Bayley in Melbourne in September 2012, who was on parole at the time.

Local newspaper the Herald Sun reports that Gray said it was a “flawed practice” to not cancel Bayley’s parole as he had been convicted of violent offences.

A more rigorous, risk averse approach … would have led to a cancellation of Bayley’s parole. It was a flawed practice as it did not bring dangerous and high-risk parolees immediately to account.

Parole practices have since been changed.

Bayley was sentenced to life in prison for raping and murdering the Irish woman. He was prevented from applying for parole for at least 35 years.

He was convicted of three further rapes following that decision, adding 18 years onto his sentence and increasing his non-parole period to 43 years.

In March, Bayley began an appeal process calling for his jail time to be cut.

Read: The man who raped and killed Jill Meagher is appealing for his jail time to be cut

Read: Tom Meagher says he cried for hours when he heard what happened to Karen Buckley