Grace Millane: Killer loses appeal against murder conviction

Grace Millane was killed in November 2018

Credit: GETTY IMAGES

The man who murdered British backpacker Grace Millane in New Zealand has lost his appeal against his conviction and sentence. 

The killer was on Friday denied his bid to reduce his sentence, hours after New Zealand’s Supreme Court made a last-minute order to keep his identity secret. His name was suppressed by a court order throughout his trial and will remain secret until a second appeal is completed.

The man murdered Ms Millane in December 2018. The jury at the trial heard that the 22-year-old from Essex was strangled to death on her birthday by the man she met on a dating app.

Prosecutors said she was strangled for a prolonged period but the defendant argued that her death was not murder but the result of rough sex that had gone wrong.

He was found guilty in November 2019, and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 17 years.

Read more: ‘Fantasist’ who murdered British backpacker Grace Millane had a history of targeting women

In March this year it was reported he would appeal his conviction and sentence at the Court of Appeal and the hearing began in Auckland on 6 August.

Denying the appeal, the judges said on Friday: “To be plain about matters, it really is very difficult to imagine much greater vulnerability than the situation Ms Millane found herself in on the evening of Saturday, 1 December 2018.” 

“Intoxicated, in a strange hotel room, naked, in the arms of a comparative stranger with whom she thought she had ‘clicked’ (and could therefore trust), and with his hands about her throat. Unable to cry out, unable to breathe, lapsing into unconsciousness.”

On Thursday, the Court of Appeal’s president Justice Stephen Kós, alongside Justice Patricia Courtney and Justice Mark Cooper, had ruled that the murderer’s interim name suppression would lapse at the same time as the judgment, but his lawyer asked the court to continue to withhold his name until a second appeal can be heard.

Read more: Boris Johnson has pledged to outlaw the ‘rough sex defence’ again – now he needs to do it

In a statement to the NZ Herald, Ms Millane’s family thanked the judges and others involved with the case.

They also thanked “the people of New Zealand for the love and support they have shown to Grace and our family over the last two years.”

They added: “Grace was a kind, fun-loving daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece, aunty, cousin and friend with her whole life ahead of her.

“She was enjoying the first of what would have been a lifetime of adventures before her life was so cruelly and brutally cut short by her murderer.”

Her father David passed away with cancer in November.

At the time, Detective Inspector Scott Beard, who worked closely with the family following Ms Millane’s death, said NZ Police extended their deepest sympathies to the Millane family.

“The Millane family had their lives turned upside down when David’s much loved and cherished daughter Grace was murdered while visiting New Zealand… Our thoughts and sympathies are with Gillian, Michael, Declan and the rest of their whanau [extended family, close community].”