Toby Loughnane: Man found guilty of girlfriend Maryam Hamka's murder
A drug user who buried his dead girlfriend’s body in the remote Victorian bushland has been found guilty of her murder.
Toby Loughnane, 44, was on trial in the Supreme Court in Melbourne, charged with killing Maryam Hamka at his Brighton home in Melbourne’s southeast.
Prosecutors said he murdered the 36-year-old in the early hours of April 11, 2021, after months of violent assaults and threatening text messages.
Loughnane then disposed of Ms Hamka’s body in a shallow grave at Cape Schanck, southeast of Melbourne, on April 14.
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He led investigators to her remains in August 2023.
Loughnane denied the murder charge, claiming instead that Ms Hamka died of a drug overdose.
He wanted to plead guilty to the lesser charge of negligent manslaughter but the offer was rejected by prosecutors.
Maryam Hamka. Credit: Supplied
Instead, a murder trial was run with a jury hearing close to three weeks of evidence.
In his closing address, Loughnane’s lawyer Daniel Sala conceded his client acted reprehensibly towards Ms Hamka in the months before her death and that he disposed of her body in bushland and did not tell investigators until years later.
But the lawyer said Loughnane’s only crime was breaching a duty of care by not calling an ambulance on April 11 and he was a heavy drug user who was trying to distance himself from her manslaughter.
Prosecutor Kristie Churchill instead argued Loughnane hated Ms Hamka, and he had been controlling, abusive and violent towards her in the lead-up to her death.
Ms Churchill told the jury it was not a reasonable possibility that Ms Hamka died of a drug overdose, instead Loughnane fatally assaulted her with murderous intent.
The jury began deliberating on Wednesday afternoon, taking less than two days to reach its guilty verdict on Friday.
Loughnane will face a pre-sentence hearing at a later date.
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