Troy Maskell has been sentenced to serve seven years and nine months in prison for the assault that led to the death of postmaster John Burke. He will not be eligible for parole until he has completed at least four years and eight months of his sentence.
Initially, in 2023, Maskell was sentenced to eight years behind bars with a minimum of five years before parole could be considered, following a guilty verdict for manslaughter in his first trial.
Maskell, aged 47, remained stoic when Victorian Supreme Court Justice James Elliott announced the adjusted sentence in court today.
Justice Elliott took into account Maskell’s good conduct and efforts towards rehabilitation while incarcerated from his previous sentence when making the decision to revise the jail term.
However, Justice Elliott emphasized the importance of condemning “unprovoked and gratuitous violence against vulnerable members of our community,” highlighting the severity of Maskell’s actions.
The retrial, held at the Victorian Supreme Court, reaffirmed Maskell’s guilt in the manslaughter of Burke, following his unprovoked attack.
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 Burke greeted as he chatted to staff.
Maskell’s partner called Burke a pedophile, before Maskell picked up a one-litre bottle of sports drink and threw it at Burke’s head, causing him to fall.
He then walked over to Burke and kicked him as he lay on the tiled floor.
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.
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,” 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.
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