Morris’ killer faces life of isolation in jail
MICHAEL MURRAY has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years for murdering Connor Morris.
Murray, 34, appeared for sentencing in the High Court at Auckland yesterday, after being found guilty in August.
The father of three was found to have attacked Morris with a sickle following a fight in a street in Massey, West Auckland, last year.
Crown prosecutor David Johnstone said yesterday the Crown was seeking a term of life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years. Victim impact statements submitted by the Morris family showed they had suffered a ‘‘deep and ongoing personal impact’’ from his death, he said.
Murray’s lawyer, Marie Dyhrberg, QC, said a life sentence would be manifestly unjust. Her client had ‘‘read every word’’ of the victim impact statements and understood the family’s distress.
Murray, his brother and a friend had been leaving their Don Buck Rd driveway after a party in August last year, when Murray’s friend clashed with some Head Hunters gang associates.
The friend had taken umbrage when one of the associates refused to shake his hand, and kicked him in the head in an ‘‘unprovoked attack’’, according to the summary of facts.
The opposing group vowed revenge and there was a mention of returning with ‘‘88s’’ – a nickname for the Head Hunters – who returned in droves minutes later.
After watching his brother Stanley get beaten, Murray retrieved a longhandled sickle from his garden and returned to swing it at Morris’s head, killing him instantly.
Morris was the boyfriend
of
Millie According to a pre-sentence report, Murray had spent much of 2013 caring for his terminally ill mother, who died of cancer that year. He has two brothers and a sister and the report noted he was like a father figure to younger brother Stanley, 12 years his junior.
Murray lived in Massey with his partner and one-year-old daughter, and had two children from a previous relationship. He had an ‘‘amicable’’ relationship with their mother.
The report writer said Murray did not drink often but smoked cannabis regularly. He had no gang affiliations. He had two prior convictions, for common assault in 2007, and for possessing an offensive weapon in 2008. For those offences he had been sentenced to community work.
He was assessed as a ‘‘high risk’’ to others, due to the violent nature of the attack on Morris. Elder-Holmes, daughter of the late broadcaster Sir Paul Holmes, and the son of senior patched Head Hunters member Chris Morris.
Yesterday, Dyhrberg asked Justice Edwin Wylie to consider her client’s defence – that he was defending his brother – and said life imprisonment would mean he was in danger for the rest of his life, after threats by the Head Hunters gang.
‘‘This is not something that is light, this is something that is very real. He will be in danger for the rest of his life, that has to be a serious mental health issue for him,’’ Dyhrberg said.
She described Murray as a model prisoner who had passed high school level courses and was ready to undertake university studies. Corrections supervisors had said he was ‘‘not like any other prisoner’’, Dyhrberg said.
However, the judge rejected the claim that life imprisonment would be manifestly unjust, and referred to aggravating factors in Murray’s offending – that the force he used was excessive, he had a cellphone available to him to call police, and that he had essentially brought a weapon to a fist fight.
Unlike others involved in the fight, he was not intoxicated, he was older, and should have known better, Wylie said.
As Murray was led from the court a member of the Morris family stood up and swore at him, prompting the judge to ask security to remove them.
Outside court, Dyhrberg said Murray feared for his life every day, despite being ‘‘well looked after’’ by Corrections. He had spent the last year in isolation, and the next 10 years would be a form of torture, she said.
‘‘It would be like anybody who’s isolated from normal communications, he’s going to suffer. It’s a form of torture, we know that, but there’s no other way he can deal with it, he simply cannot mix with the normal prison population.’’
Although she said the sentence was fair and appropriate, she was still considering whether there were grounds for an appeal of conviction. ‘‘If we can find grounds then we will appeal,’’ she said.
Millie Elder-Holmes was not present at the sentencing. She is holidaying on the Greek island of Lesbos, where her biological father Stratis Kabanas is a tour operator.