Millane murder trial begins
AUCKLAND: ‘‘Grace can’t tell us.’’
With those words Crown prosecutor Robin McCoubrey began laying out the case against the man accused of murdering British backpacker Grace Millane.
The evidence included the discovery of the young woman’s body, which had been stuffed into a Warehouse suitcase and buried in a shallow grave in the Waitakere Ranges.
It would also include CCTV footage of the pair shot in central Auckland just hours before she vanished.
But how she died is very much disputed and will be pivotal during the accused man’s murder trial which began yesterday in the High Court at Auckland.
A heavy day of evidence, including the discovery of Grace Millane’s body in a shallow grave west of Auckland, has begun the trial of the man accused of murdering the British backpacker.
Those who packed into the courtroom listened to two distinct versions of the last hours of Miss Millane and the actions of the 27yearold man who allegedly killed her in December last year.
Miss Millane, a university graduate on her OE and travelling around New Zealand, vanished the day before her 22nd birthday, December 1.
CCTV last showed Miss Millane alive about 9.40pm that day entering Auckland’s CityLife Hotel with the accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
Her body was eventually found on December 9 in the Waitakere Ranges.
Only two people will ever know exactly what happened inside the downtown apartment that night.
‘‘Grace can’t tell us,’’ Mr McCoubrey told the jury yesterday.
The other sat in the High Court dock in a white shirt and blue suit. He was visibly upset and in tears for much of the opening addresses and at one point had to leave the courtroom — halting the trial — because he was psychically unwell.
Miss Millane’s alleged killer had given a police interview on December 8 last year, parts of which Mr McCoubrey read to the court.
The accused claimed he and Miss Millane, who had met on the dating app Tinder and drank heavily that night, had rough sex in the hotel room before he passed out in the shower.
‘‘I crawled back into bed . . . I thought Grace had left,’’ the accused told police.
When he woke, the accused said Miss Millane was ‘‘lying on the floor, I saw she had blood coming from her nose’’.
But Mr McCoubrey told the jury this was all a fabrication, a lie the accused had concocted.
The prosecutor, a former London barrister, said a pathologist would give evidence later in the trial about how Miss Millane died from sustained pressure to the neck.
Her body also showed bruising to her chest and upper arms, Mr McCoubrey said.
Most of the events leading up to Miss Millane’s disappearance and death had been captured by CCTV. The cameras showed her and the accused enjoying themselves at bars and eateries near SkyCity, and kissing before entering the accused’s apartment.
‘‘But, of course, it’s what happened inside the room that counts,’’ Mr McCoubrey said.
The accused’s lawyer, Ian Brookie, who is leading the defence team, told the jury Miss Millane died not from a murder but ‘‘a perfectly ordinary, casual sexual encounter between a young couple’’.
More specifically ‘‘an act designed to enhance their sexual pleasure that went wrong’’.
Mr Brookie said the events which led to Miss Millane’s death came with her ‘‘knowledge, encouragement and only with the goal of sexual pleasure’’.
‘‘The defence is not doing this in anyway to suggest that Ms Miss Millane is to blame, she is not to blame,’’ the defence lawyer said.
While his client’s actions may have caused Miss Millane’s death, Mr Brookie said the accused was also not to blame, ‘‘although he may blame himself’’.
‘‘Put simply, this was an accident, it was not murder.’’
But Mr McCoubrey said the Crown would also rely on evidence about the accused’s actions after Miss Millane died.
He claimed several internet searches were made by the accused after her death in the early hours of December 2.
These included searches for the Waitakere Ranges and for ‘‘hottest fire’’ at 1.35am.
‘‘It’s plain that Ms Millane is dead at this point,’’ Mr McCoubrey said.
‘‘He is trying to find a place to hide her body . . . He is trying to find a means of disposing of her body. There can be no reason for making those searches if Ms Millane was alive, unless there was a plan to kill her.’’
The accused also searched for pornography and took several intimate photos of Miss Millane’s body, Mr McCoubrey said.
Later, the court heard, the accused bought several cleaning products, including hiring a Rug Doctor machine, and a suitcase which Miss Millane’s body was contorted to fit inside.
But, Mr McCoubrey said, the accused went on another Tinder date while Miss Millane’s body was still in the apartment.
The court heard the accused recalled to his date a story of a man who was imprisoned for manslaughter after he was having ‘‘kinky or rough sex but that it all went wrong’’.
Mr McCoubrey said the alleged killer may have been ‘‘testing out a version of events that he may have to rely on later’’.
The woman will give evidence later in the trial.
After hiring a rental car, the accused then transported Miss Millane’s body to Scenic Dr and buried the suitcase in a shallow grave in the Waitakere Ranges, the court heard.
Yesterday afternoon, the jury heard from the police officers who found Miss Millane’s body after polling data from the accused’s phone led them to the area.
‘‘There was a naked female lying inside the suitcase. She was in a foetal position, her head was facing down towards where the wheels were,’’ Detective Lewis Sin said.
‘‘She had long hair, untied, her eyes were closed . . . her feet were tucked in.
‘‘She had black nail polish on her toes.’’
However, Mr Brookie said what his client did after Miss Millane died may have been motivated by fear or that he would not be believed.
‘‘It’s just not as simple as what the Crown is saying to you,’’ he said.
‘‘Is there really only one explanation for what is happening or is there another way of looking at it?’’
Miss Millane’s parents, David and Gillian, were also seated at the back of the courtroom yesterday with a clear view of the accused.
A statement from the young woman’s father was the first piece of Crown evidence and was read by Mr McCoubrey.
In it, David Millane said his daughter was in contact at least once a day during her travels but that contact ceased on December 1.
The last message she sent her family was of a Christmas tree at SkyCity that day.
‘‘She was savvy about people in general and she was not overly trusting of people, but not overly shy,’’ he said.
‘‘We heard from Grace virtually every day . . . she enjoyed sharing her adventures with us.’’
The trial, which is expected to last four to five weeks, continues today. — The New Zealand Herald