Smith asks jury to find him guilty
Murderer Phillip John Smith has been found guilty of fleeing the country in an unusual trial.
Smith was charged with an offence under the Passport Act and escaping custody, after applying for a passport under a different name and using it to flee to Chile, then Brazil, while on a release to work programme. He fled New Zealand in November 2014 – on the day he got out of prison.
He was allowed out of Springhill Prison in Waikato on temporary release. He was to stay with an associate in west Auckland. He never arrived.
Eventually an employee at the backpackers he was staying at in Rio de Janeiro alerted Brazilian authorities.
Smith, 40, was imprisoned in 1996 for stabbing to death the father of a boy he molested. He was also convicted of molesting the boy over a three-year period.
At the Auckland District Court yesterday, Smith took the unusual step of pleading not guilty to the charges but requested the jury find him guilty.
His lawyer, Tony Ellis, said this was to preserve his client’s right to appeal the guilty verdict if needed, depending on the outcome of other court matters. These included a matter involving the Brazilian judge who approved his deportation, who was later found to be incompetent, an alcoholic and to be suffering from dementia.
Under Brazilian law a person cannot be extradited if they face a sentence of 30 years or more, which a life sentence arguably was, Ellis said.
If the Brazilian court matter went in Smith’s favour, he might decide to appeal his conviction in New Zealand.
After the jury found Smith guilty, Judge David Sharp sentenced him to 33 months in jail.
In January, Smith’s half-sister, Joanne Barbara, Smith was sentenced in the Auckland District Court to eight months of home detention after having pleaded guilty to a charge of helping Smith escape prison.