Conviction bid quashed
Killer’s appeal thrown out of court
A MAN who brutally murdered his former boss in their Townsville home has had his bid to quash his conviction thrown out.
The Court of Appeal dismissed Kyle Robert Thompson’s appeal against his murder conviction on Tuesday morning.
Thompson was first sentenced to life in jail in 2018 over the “calculated” November 15, 2015 murder of businessman David Knyvett, 59, in his Belgian Gardens home.
But the sentence was overturned in 2019 after the Court of Appeal found the trial judge had misdirected the jury, resulting in a “substantial miscarriage of justice”.
Days before the murder, Thompson – who periodically lived with Mr Knyvett – had been kicked out for stealing and damaging Mr Knyvett’s car.
Mr Knyvett died after inhaling his own blood after he was struck in the head by a whiskey bottle wielded by Thompson. In Thompson’s second trial in Townsville Supreme Court in April 2021, he claimed to have been “provoked” by the 59-year-old after an unwanted sexual advance.
Thompson further claimed the advance had come after 10 years of sexual abuse at the hands of Mr Knyvett.
But the claim of provocation was ultimately rejected, with the jury delivering a unanimous verdict of guilty.
Court of Appeal documents show Thompson sought to quash his conviction on the basis that the trial judge did not direct the jury to consider the “objective aspect” of the defence with Thompson’s subjective features in mind.
But the documents stated the trial judge had identified three questions of fact involved in the defence of provocation, including: whether there had been any provocation by Mr Knyvett, whether Thompson had been provoked by Mr Knyvett, and whether Thompson acted while provoked when he struck Mr Knyvett.
It was further noted in the documents that the trial judge had told the jury to assess Mr Knyvett’s conduct from the point of view of Thompson.
“… The trial judge also made it clear that the question they had to answer was whether provocative conduct of that seriousness (of the provocative conduct experienced by Thompson) could have caused an ordinary person to lose selfcontrol and act as Thompson did,” the documents stated.
It was ordered the appeal be dismissed.
“The appellant has not shown error on the part of the trial judge in the directions given on the second element of the defence of provocation,” the documents stated.