Court of Appeal rejects appeal over Timaru attempted murder
A man who has already spent eight years behind bars for attempting to murder a 13-year-old girl in Timaru has had an appeal dismissed after the Court of Appeal rejected his claim he never intended to kill her.
Blaine Ross Hughes was 21 when he was sentenced to preventive detention with a minimum nonrelease period of five years by the High Court at Timaru in 2014.
A preventive detention order means Hughes may be released on parole, but will remain managed by Corrections for the rest of his life, and can be recalled to prison.
Hughes’ sentence relates to an incident on December 3, 2013, when he pulled a 13-year-old girl off her bike in Washdyke and dragged her backwards across a path over a barbed-wire fence into nearby shrubs. He put significant pressure on the girl’s throat, which caused her to lose consciousness.
He only stopped when he was noticed by a member of the public and fled the scene. He was arrested four days later.
He originally told police he had intended to steal the girl’s bike, then later confessed he planned to kill her. This led to him being charged with attempted murder, which he pleaded guilty to, alongside additional charges of unlawfully taking a motor vehicle, theft, burglary, possession of an offensive weapon and possession of a firearm.
At the time of his sentencing, Crown prosecutor Anne-Marie McRae said the thought of getting away with murder was ‘‘exciting’’ to Hughes.
‘‘He said in his statement: ‘I thought I could get away with strangling and shooting her’.’’
Hughes, who is now 29, appealed his conviction and sentence, saying he made up his claim that he wanted to murder the girl because he was worried about being targeted in prison if people thought he had a sexual motive.
He also told the court that while he was on remand, he was a prospect for the Head Hunters gang because he had hoped this would provide protection from violence and harassment in prison. As a prospect, he was required to submit the summary of facts of his crimes to the gang, he said.
Hughes told the court he was concerned he would be rejected from the gang if the summary suggested his offending was sexually motivated.
He now claims he doesn’t know what his intentions were when he attacked the girl.
Hughes further told the court he was coerced by police into making a false confession because of the way two police officers pressured him, his concern about not being labelled as a child sex offender, and his belief ‘‘the police would transport him back to Christchurch Men’s Prison if he confessed’’. The Court of Appeal rejected this, saying Hughes’ responses when he was cross-examined by Crown prosecutor Charlotte Brook at the appeal hearing were ‘‘revealing’’. ‘‘Although Mr Hughes now endeavours to minimise his motives when he abducted [the victim] by saying he does not recall his intentions, when Ms Brook asked him whether he ‘probably would have killed [the victim]’, he responded that he ‘could have’. Ms
Brook put to Mr Hughes that ‘it wasn’t going to end well for [the victim] though, was it?’. His chilling response was ‘[p]robably not’.’’
The court said Hughes gave six conflicting accounts about his role and motivations for the offending, and demonstrated ‘‘a strong propensity to say whatever he thinks is in his best short-term interests’’.
The court said while it accepted Hughes may have feared reprisals in prison if labelled a child sex offender, his actions on the day would likely have led his fellow prisoners to regard his offending as despicable either way.
‘‘His concern about feared reprisals in prison however, is far from determinative.’’
The court also rejected Hughes’ claims he was coerced by police into making a false confession, saying a review of Hughes’ interview did not reveal any signs of inappropriate conduct by police officers.
‘‘From what we can ascertain, Mr Hughes has still not been able to address his psychological problems,’’ the Court of Appeal said. ‘‘What is clear from the most recent [psychological] report is that after having spent approximately eight years in prison, Mr Hughes continues to pose a serious risk of committing another violent offence.’’
The court ruled a sentence of preventive detention was ‘‘a considered and proportionate response’’ to Hughes’ offending.