Grace Millane's killer receives life sentence
AUCKLAND: Two families will now serve a life sentence for a crime described as callous, brutal and depraved.
On the eve of her 22nd birthday, British backpacker Grace Millane went missing. Global headlines soon followed.
The world would learn she died terrified and alone in a dark room with her killer.
‘‘The terror and pain she must have experienced at your hands, as a mother I would have done anything to change places with her,’’ Gillian Millane said yesterday.
She spoke through tears at the sentencing of her only daughter’s murderer and said the killer had stolen Miss Millane’s future and had robbed her family of their memories.
The 28yearold killer was sentenced in the High Court at Auckland to life imprisonment with a nonparole period of 17 years for strangling Miss Millane to death in his downtown Auckland apartment in December 2018.
Despite being found guilty by a jury last November, the killer maintains his innocence, Justice Simon Moore and the High Court at Auckland was told.
Counsel Ian Brookie said a decision was yet to be made on an appeal.
The killer still cannot be named but his suppression order is not permanent and will be reviewed at a later date.
Mrs Millane told the murderer via a live video link from England: ‘‘Any life sentence you will receive will not match the life sentence without my Grace, but I will do my utmost to make sure that no other family has to go through what we have endured.’’
Grace, she said, was ‘‘my very best friend’’.
‘‘We laughed together, we made memories that we will treasure forever.’’
The recent university graduate was travelling the world when she ‘‘matched’’ with her killer on the dating app Tinder. The pair met near a Christmas tree on December 1 under Auckland’s Sky Tower before spending a night drinking together.
She was last seen alive on CCTV with her killer, walking towards his CityLife hotel room.
During his sentencing remarks, Justice Moore asked the question which many will continue to ponder.
‘‘Exactly what happened from the moment Ms Millane first stepped into [the apartment] we will never know.
‘‘Only two people were witness to those events and one is not alive to tell us . . . . We do not know if Ms Millane struggled but it is likely she did.’’
The New Zealand Herald asked the killer’s father, who was at the hearing and much of the trial, what he thought of the sentence and when he last spoke to his son.
However, he simply shook his head as he wiped away tears and left the court precinct.
But rehabilitation remains a ‘‘real prospect’’ for the killer, Mr Brookie said.
Auckland Crown solicitor Brian Dickey said he and the prosecution team were happy with the 17year nonparole sentence.
There was a highlevel of cruelty, callousness and brutality in Ms Millane’s murder, he said.
‘‘Manual strangulation, the act which must have killed Miss Millane. It is a very close, personal and callous thing to do to another person.
‘‘It was a violent death for Grace Millane.’’
In the killer’s second police interview he finally confessed to Miss Millane dying in his apartment before also telling police where he buried her body in the Waitakere Ranges.
Detective Inspector Scott Beard, the police officer who oversaw the investigation, said no matter what the outcome was yesterday, the Millane family ‘‘will forever have a life sentence’’.
He also struggled with the idea that strangling someone until they died was rough sex.
‘‘If people are going to use that type of defence all it actually does is repeatedly revictimises the victim and the victim’s family. In this case the Millanes had to sit through a trial for a number of weeks and their daughter’s background, rightly or wrongly, was out in the public.
‘‘I don’t believe rough sex should be a defence, [but] I understand why the defence would use it.’’
Det Insp Beard said it was up to politicians to debate whether such a defence should be outlawed.
White Ribbon also said in a statement the ‘‘rough sex defence’’ was an international issue and there was increasing pressure on Western governments worldwide to ban it.
Mr Brookie, who led a team which included Ron Mansfield and Claire Farquhar, has been publicly criticised for using the rough sex defence.
He said yesterday several factors needed to be taken into account when sentencing his client, including that Ms Millane and the murderer had consensual sex while highly intoxicated and engaged in BDSM.
After sentencing the killer, Justice Moore praised Mr Brookie and said his defence was entirely proper and run in a ‘‘strong and competent fashion’’. — The New Zealand Herald