Beast of Blenheim back in jail
Stewart Murray Wilson, known as the The Beast of Blenheim, has been sentenced to prison for two years and four months for the historical rapes of two women and one child.
However, the unrepentant Wilson has vowed to fight on – instructing his lawyer to appeal both his sentence and conviction shortly after he was imprisoned again yesterday.
Wilson, 72, was convicted in October for the rapes, which date back to the 1970s and 1980s, after a trial at the High Court in Auckland.
Considered one the country’s worst sex offenders, he was jailed in 1996 for 21 years for various offences, including rape and indecent assault, between 1972 and 1994.
Justice Graham Lang was restricted in the sentence he could impose on Wilson for the most recent convictions because he had already served the 21 years for his previous offending.
Justice Lang had to consider what extra uplift, if any, the sentencing judge in 1996 would have given had he known about the most recent convictions.
Allowing Wilson to be sentenced to home detention was not a viable option because of the seriousness of his offending, Justice Lang said.
Speaking after the sentencing, Wilson’s lawyer, Andrew McKenzie, said his client had instructed him to appeal both the sentence and conviction.
In a letter to the judge, Wilson said he was ‘‘sorry for his past’’ and any hurt he may have caused. ‘‘I ask for the mercy of the court and am sorry for my past. I have no recall of the charges . . . or the people.’’
Wilson explained his lack of memory was because of childhood ‘‘shock therapy’’.
The jury in his most recent trial was not told about Wilson’s previous offending or his 1996 trial, and was only told his name.
The evidence heard by the jury related to four complainants who alleged they were each raped by Wilson at different times, and at different locations, around New Zealand during the 1970s.
Wilson was aged between 26 and 33 at the time. One of the complainants was 9 when she was raped by him.
Another victim, who gave her evidence at an earlier hearing due to having a terminal illness, told the court that Wilson broke into her home in 1972. She called police but they could not find him.
After they left, he emerged and attacked her. ‘‘I was standing in my room and an arm came around my neck and heard him say: You b .... , I heard you ring the police, I’ll get you for this.
‘‘He told me that he had been hiding in one of the cupboards in the kitchen.’’
Wilson made the woman go into Wellington City and eat a meal before he took her home and raped her three times that night.
Her young child was in the room at the time. ‘‘It was the longest night of my life.’’
The child Wilson raped, who is now an adult, recalled at trial how traumatic his attack on her was. ‘‘I recall him saying ‘good girl, it will be over soon’. I think he said other things but my memory isn’t clear. I have spent a long time trying to forget.’’
Since 2012, Wilson has been living on the grounds of Whanganui Prison in a self-contained unit. The Department of Corrections had let him do certain activities, like fishing, under the watch of guards.
The most recent convictions came about when Wilson was reinvestigated in 2016 for the historical complaints.