Grace’s mum ‘numb’: Inquiry head

The officer in charge of the Grace Millane investigation says the slain woman’s mother hasn’t had time to grieve after the loss of her daughter, her husband and dealing with a new lockdown in Britain.

The British backpacker was murdered in December 2018. Her father David died of cancer this year and her mother has battled breast cancer.

Detective Inspector Scott Beard said he had been speaking with Gillian Millane and felt for how much the family have had to deal with.

“For three years now she’s basically been numb. She’s had her own health scares, she’s had Grace’s situation and of course last year David was sick and recently died. She hasn’t really had time to grieve or move on and Christmas is coming and they’re in lockdown. I’m sure the public can’t help but feel for the Millane family.”

Millane’s killer Jesse Kempson was named on Tuesday after suppression finally was lifted. That allowed details of his sexual offending against two other women to be reported.

Beard told Newstalk ZB that Kempson seemed “relatively plausible” when police initially met him, and it wasn’t until they got CCTV footage that they realised Kempson was lying.

“From that moment we started thinking ‘right, we’re on the right track here’.”

Asked for his opinion about Kempson keeping his name secret for so long, Beard said he had a right to a fair trial but could understand some of the frustration of the public.

As for the victims of Kempson’s earlier offending, who came forward after noticing his image being circulated by overseas media, Beard said it had been hard to learn it was the same man who killed Millane.

“The two victims who gave evidence in court . . . you could tell how devastated they were with the realisation of who he was.”

As for Kempson himself, Beard said his upbringing was mentioned in court but “at end of the day, he’s accountable for his actions and we had three victims here, and for the Millane family they will never have Grace back”.