Life for vicious murder of boss

A MAN has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his former employer, whom he had lived with on and off for 10 years.

Kyle Robert Thompson, 29, was yesterday found guilty of the murder of signwriter David Knyvett, 59, who died from inhaling his own blood after being beaten in his Belgian Gardens home.

During the trial in the Supreme Court in Townsville, the jury heard evidence that Thompson had hit Mr Knyvett around the head with an empty Jack Daniels bottle on November 15, 2015.

The court heard Thompson moved Mr Knyvett to the bathroom and it was there that his body was found the next day with duct tape around his ankles, hands and neck.

Justice David North said Thompson’s offending was violent and without provocation, on the jury’s finding, and he “demonstrated an element of cowardliness”.

“There was the opportunity to call for medical assistance, you denied Knyvett that opportunity,” he said. “You let him lie there, bleeding and bleeding to death by suffocation on his own blood.”

In a video of his police interview played during the trial, Thompson said he had been abused by Mr Knyvett and that he hit him that day after being groped in the kitchen.

Thompson said he “didn’t expect him to die” and that he had taped Mr Knyvett’s ankles to prevent him from falling over in the bathroom.

“I just wanted to hurt him like he’s hurt me,” Thompson said. “It was only a couple of hits of the head.”

But in his summing- up of the case on Friday, Crown prosecutor Nigel Rees called it “a brutal and vicious attack” and said Thompson left Mr Knyvett there to die.

Defence barrister Harvey Walters raised the defence of provocation, which would have reduced the charge from murder to manslaughter, but yesterday afternoon the jury took just an hour to find him guilty of murder.

Thompson stood silently in the dock as the verdict was read out and as his sentence was delivered.

Two victim statements were read out in court from Mr Knyvett’s sister and niece, describing him as “a gentle soul”.

Speaking outside court, detective Sergeant Brendan Stevenson told media it was a good result for police and the family.

“It sort of brings closure to a two- year exhaustive investigation,” he said.