Second term of preventive detention
Notorious convicted child killer Stephen Williams has been sentenced to preventive detention with a minimum period of imprisonment of 14 years for the attempted murder of a fellow inmate at Rimutaka Prison.
When asked at the start of the hearing whether he had anything to say to the court, Williams, who represented himself, said: ‘‘Na, hurry up. Get it over with.’’ He sat in the dock at the High Court in Wellington yesterday, surrounded by prison guards, scowling, and at one point said to Justice Peter Churchman: ‘‘F... you’’.
At another point, he said to a photographer in the court: ‘‘What is funny you f ...... c...? You stare me down again and I will f ...... kill you.’’
When asked to stand for the judge at the end of the sentencing hearing, Williams initially refused.
In July, Williams, 45, threw a 1-litre flask of boiling water on the man and then began to stab his head and neck with a sharpened plastic knife.
Williams is already serving a life sentence for the murder of his 6-year-old stepdaughter, Coral-Ellen Burrows.
Burrows’ beaten body was found on the shores of Lake Ferry in Wairarapa after a 10-day search in 2003.
It is the second time Williams – who has amassed nearly 100 convictions – has been sentenced to preventive detention.
According to court documents, his most recent victim moved into the same prison unit as Williams in late July.
Williams offered the man a cigarette – which is contraband – to welcome him.
The following day Corrections staff searched Williams’ cell and found tobacco.
Williams believed the man had told Corrections officers about the cigarette he had offered him the day prior, according to court documents.
Williams sharpened a plastic knife using the blade from a pencil sharpener and wrapped the handle in a towel.
Williams filled a 1-litre flask of boiling water from the communal zip.
He then walked into the man’s cell and threw the water over him, and then struck him with the knife. After suffering several blows to his head and neck, the victim managed to escape.
He survived his injuries but was left with extensive burns.
Following the incident, Williams said that he intended to kill the man.
Grant Burston for the Crown said preventive detention was the only suitable sentence.
When Williams was last in court in 2017, for an attempted murder of another inmate, it was his 97th conviction.
At the time he said he wanted to stay in jail for the rest of his life, as ‘‘punishment’’ for killing his stepdaughter.