A WA court has dismissed Francis John Wark’s appeal against his conviction and record sentence for abducting and killing missing teenager Hayley Dodd.

May 2, 2023

The man convicted of abducting and killing missing West Australian teenager Hayley Dodd has failed to have his conviction and sentence overturned.

Francis John Wark, 67, was sentenced to a record 18 years in prison at retrial for the 1999 manslaughter of the 17-year-old.

It was the longest manslaughter sentence ever handed down in the state in 2021 after Wark was acquitted by a jury of murdering the teen but found guilty of the lesser charge.

His appeal against the conviction and sentence was heard by the Court of Appeal last year. Three judges dismissed his challenges in a decision published on Tuesday.

Hayley was last seen alive in 1999, walking along a road near rural Badgingarra, about 200 kilometres north of Perth.

Her body has never been found.

Wark was charged in 2015 after a cold case review linked an earring and a strand of hair found in his Holden ute to Hayley.

He was convicted in 2018 of murdering the teen but successfully appealed the conviction in 2020 before a retrial was ordered.

In his sentencing remarks following the second trial in 2021, Justice Stephen Hall found Wark had lured Hayley into his ute with the intention of sexually assaulting her and attacked her when she tried to resist.

He then disposed of her body with “callous disregard” in a way that ensured he would not be linked to her death.

The 18-year sentence is six years longer than the previous record manslaughter sentence in WA.

Wark will be eligible for parole after serving 16 years but he will only be released if he complies with the state’s no body, no parole law.

If he doesn’t he will not complete the sentence of 18 years’ imprisonment until 2037 when he will be aged 81.

Wark has been behind bars since 2007, when he was jailed for raping a woman he picked up in a remote part of Queensland.

He most recently appealed against his conviction alleging the guilty verdict was not supported by the evidence.

He also claimed that including evidence in his trial about his 2007 sexual assault of the hitchhiker was a miscarriage of justice.

“We have no doubt, for the reasons we have given … that the appellant’s inclination or predisposition could rationally affect, to a significant extent, the assessment of the probability that on 29 July 1999 the appellant picked up Ms Dodd … at the place where she disappeared on North West Road,” Justices Michael Buss, Robert Mazza and John Vaughan wrote in their judgment.

“After picking up Ms Dodd, the appellant detained and assaulted her; and the appellant killed Ms Dodd in the course of prosecuting that unlawful purpose.”

Wark appealed against his sentence on the basis that it was excessive and Justice Hall had erred when he found Wark had used “violence for the purpose of furthering a sexual objective”.

Justices Buss, Mazza and Vaughan said Wark’s record demonstrated he was not a man of good character, did not accept responsibility for his criminal conduct and had no empathy or remorse.

“We are satisfied, having regard to the nature and facts of the appellant’s offending and his personal circumstances and antecedents … that the appellant’s offending was not merely a grave instance of the offence of manslaughter,” they wrote in their reasons.

“It was within the ‘worst category’ of the offence.

“The appellant’s offending warranted the imposition of the maximum penalty of 20 years’ imprisonment, subject to reductions on account of the mitigating factors.”