Killer loses appeal

CONVICTED murderer Adrian Wayne Smillie will still serve at least 12 years in prison after the appeal of his murder and wounding convictions were dismissed.

Smillie, 38, was found guilty by a jury in 2014 of murdering Benjamin Maxwell two years earlier in Devonport on Christmas Day by stabbing him 18 times to the chest and arms.

He was also found guilty of stabbing and wounding Mr Maxwell’s flatmate Ashley Stott.

Justice Stephen Estcourt sentenced Smillie, who had failed to convince the jury he acted in self-defence, to 21 years in prison with a nonparole period of 12 years.

Smillie appealed the convictions and the length of his sentence before Chief Justice Alan Blow and Justices Helen Wood and Robert Pearce.

Smillie’s lawyer Kim Baumeler had said Justice Estcourt, in his directions to the jury before they retired to consider their verdict, might have caused some confusion and created a two-stage process where they had to both consider if they had a doubt and if it was a reasonable one.

In the appeal findings handed down yesterday, all three judges dismissed the appeal of the convictions.

“After considering the summing-up as a whole, we are satisfied that the learned trial judge’s directions and comments as to the standard of proof did not result in a miscarriage of justice,” the judges wrote.

It was also found Smillie’s sentence was reasonable.

“It was significant that Mr Maxwell was unarmed, that he was killed in a public place in a residential area and that the murder weapon was a long and dangerous knife,” the judges wrote.

“A number of common mitigating factors were absent — the appellant had not pleaded guilty, there was little indication of any remorse, but the learned trial judge took into account the possibility of that being attributable to the appellant’s psychiatric disorder.”