Woman found guilty of Stott M1 kidnapping
A WOMAN accused of kidnapping Brisbane private school teacher Anthony Stott hours before his bizarre death has been found guilty.
Lauren Grainger, 41, of Kin Kin, dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief after the verdict was handed down in Lismore District Court on Wednesday morning.
The guilty verdict followed about 90 minutes of jury deliberation and a seven-day trial.
Grainger will have to wait until December to learn her sentence.
She had pleaded not guilty to the aggravated kidnapping of Stott in the early hours of February 10, 2020.
The St Peters Lutheran College French teacher was killed by a semitrailer on the M1 after being held captive at a Cudgera Creek farm in northern NSW.
It followed a mysterious mid-air meltdown on a flight from Sydney to Brisbane the previous day as well as a late-night, high-speed drive from Brisbane which ended with him skidding off the M1 in his BMW and abandoning it.
Stott then wandered onto the remote farm where he was tied to a plastic chair and allegedly hit with the golf club as his drunken captors demanded to know “why the f. k he was there”, Lismore District Court has been told.
Grainger’s co-accused, ex-partner Mark Frost and his friend Craig Button, pleaded guilty earlier this year and received reduced sentences for testifying against Grainger.
During the trial, Grainger denied hitting Stott with the golf club but admitted to taking photos of him tied to the chair and texting them to friends to try to find out if they knew him.
The trial heard that Stott was interrogated for several hours before being loaded onto a farm ute while still tied to the chair, driven several kilometres and then returned to the farm to be released.
He then wandered back to the highway where he was fatally struck by the truck.
Toxicology tests on Stott came back negative for drugs and alcohol but the court heard he may have been psychotic.
Before retiring just after 10am, the jury asked Judge Jeffrey McLennan SC whether there was any evidence of fingerprints on the knife that Grainger claims Stott was armed with when he came to her back door.
The judge said there was not. In his closing address on Tuesday, defence barrister David Funch told the jury that Stott’s death was “absolutely tragic” but Grainger did not kill him.
“Ironically, someone who’s the subject of a home invasion is now on trial accused of being a criminal kidnapper. Just because someone might be an idiot or not thinking clearly or panicked or whatever, it doesn’t mean they’re a kidnapper.”
Earlier, in his closing address, Crown prosecutor Josh Hanna said the response by Grainger, Frost and Button was “completely over the top and unreasonable”.
“They didn’t give him an opportunity to explain who he was or what he was doing there – they went completely overboard in their response,” Mr Hanna told the jury.
“In the completely wrong suspicion that he was there for sinister purposes, they restrained him, tied him up and conducted a drunken, violent interrogation over the next several hours.”
Mr Hanna said Grainger’s claim that Stott had a knife was “simply an invention by her”.
Judge McLennan said evidence that Grainger was drunk and “very messy” had to be taken into account when determining her perception of the circumstances and whether she believed her conduct was necessary.
Speaking outside court, Grainger’s lawyer, Dave Garratt of Howden Saggers Lawyers, said she was “very disappointed about today’s result”
“However she thanks the jury and accepts the jury’s ultimate decision,” he said.
“This is a case that there’s obviously no winners in. She’s obviously remorseful – she has been from day dot – about what happened to Mr Stott.
“She appreciates it’s been hard for the family and it’s been hard for everyone in this case.”
Her sentencing hearing was adjourned until December 6.