Vyleen White’s daughter has been working to promote togetherness with the community of the Sudanese refugee teenager who stabbed the beloved grandmother to death for her Hyundai Getz in Queensland.
Cindy Micallef spoke out two days before Ms White’s murderer is due to be sentenced over the savage unprovoked killing, which took place in the carpark of the Town Square Redbank Plains Shopping Centre in Ipswich in front of Ms White’s six-year-old granddaughter on February 3 last year.
She said that while she has not yet forgiven the killer, she has been supporting the local African community ever since condemning racist abuse allegedly aimed at them in the aftermath of the murder, that sparked anger around Australia.
“I’m not at that point of forgiveness yet with the offender, I’m sure many can understand that,” Micallef told 9News.
“There is a lot of anger and resentment in this world and we can’t let bitterness eat us up.”
One community leader she has been working with, Athiei Foundation founder Beny Bol, has been visiting the 17-year-old killer, who cannot be identified due to his age, in prison in the hopes of rehabilitating him.
“If we help an offender to rehabilitate successfully, that is a healing for the whole community, it is a healing for the families – not just for the particular person, we are helping ourselves as well,” Mr Bol said.
He also praised Ms Micallef’s actions following her mother’s murder, saying her kindness sends ” a very strong message not just to the African community but to the wider Australian community that this is how we should treat each other as Australians”.
When asked what response she has had from the African community, Ms Micallef said: “The appreciation and love shown, that’s reciprocated. We’re just, no one sees colour.”
The murderer faces a maximum 10 years in prison as his offence was committed before Queensland’s new “adult crime, adult time” laws came into effect, which Ms White’s family, including Ms Micallef, campaigned for.
The sentence can be increased to life if the judge decides the crime was particularly heinous, and Ms White’s husband Victor said after the guilty plea that the teen was “lucky I’m not the judge” and believed in a “life for a life”.
The murderer will be sentenced on Wednesday.
Header image: Left, Mr Bol and Ms Micallef (9News). Right, Vyleen White (supplied).
