Grace Millane murder - do we believe the accused?
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LondonJohn
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It appears that some here find this whole concept rather difficult to figure out and understand.
With the apparent result that they still believe it's entirely reasonable to suppose that the
LondonJohn
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Absolutely. I wrote something to this effect earlier. The point is that if Millane did indeed consent to being choked, with the objective being heightened sexual arousal by means of erotic asphyxiation, then obviously she would have expected at the very least to have been choked to a point just shy of unconsciousness - because this is the very point at which the heightened sexual arousal takes place. And I'd further suggest that she'd have been entirely prepared for a scenario in which she was accidentally choked further than that point, and into actual unconsciousness. But I'd hope everyone here would see it as a given that Millane would have expected the person doing the choking to release his grip as soon as he observed that she'd become unconscious, such that she'd quickly regain consciousness.
As such, it stands to reason that Millane would almost certainly not have been resisting and struggling even up to the point of unconsciousness. So: no defensive or struggle-based injuries. But on the matter of bruising only having been inflicted on one side of Millane's neck, the reason for this seems absurdly simple and obvious to me: a strong male with reasonably large hands can very easily choke a more slight woman with just one hand. There's absolutely no reason to assume that necessarily this man must have had both hands around Millane's neck.
Remember also (and perhaps some here don't realise) that if the mechanism of death in this case was strangulation, this has little or nothing to do with constriction of the windpipe and interruption to breathing. Rather, it's to do with restricting or cutting off the flow of blood to/from the brain. And again, for a reasonably well-built man with good-sized hands, it's actually rather easy to use just one hand to squeeze around one side of the neck, with the effect of compressing one or more carotid arteries and thereby interrupting blood flow to the brain. I strongly suspect that this is exactly what happened in this case.
This looks like accidental murder if we are to agree with the verdict.
When first applying pressure to the neck we have no reason to believe there was murderous intent. Did murderous intent develop as the exercise continued?
New Zealanders react as expected, with one kiwiblogger calling for LWOP.
"It would take the majority of sensible thinkers about ten seconds to decide the only sentence applicable is life without parole."
When first applying pressure to the neck we have no reason to believe there was murderous intent. Did murderous intent develop as the exercise continued?
New Zealanders react as expected, with one kiwiblogger calling for LWOP.
"It would take the majority of sensible thinkers about ten seconds to decide the only sentence applicable is life without parole."
New Zealand remains outraged at the breach of their suppression order.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12287727
Despite repeated warnings after the man's first appearance in December last year, dozens of publications repeatedly breached the suppression order.
In July, Google suspended its trending emails in New Zealand and apologised to Justice Minister Andrew Little after a mass email went to 10,000 subscribers naming the killer.
Following that, Little began work with the UK, Australia and Canada to see what more could be done to ensure suppression orders were obeyed.
At that time, there were fears in the legal community the continuous publication of the 27-year-old's name and details would compromise the trial.
Well let us see now, if a New Zealand woman met her death in London in a similar fashion would we all be quite happy to have no information after 12 months?
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Isn't the trial over now that the 27 year old man (who obviously I won't name) has been convicted?
Rolfe
Adult human female
Someone suggested earlier in the thread that he had also been charged with a separate crime of rape against someone else and the name suppression was to prevent prejudice of that trial. If that's the case I suspect that's past praying for now. The rape trial is probably hopelessly compromised.
This does not follow at all. This was no accident.
Big deal. No single country can control the internet. Cardinal Pell’s name was all over the internet despite suppressing orders. He still got a fair trial.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Or did he? If suppressing orders are supposed to ensure a fair trial, but modern technology makes a mockery of suppressing orders, how can you argue that someone still got a fair trial, when the suppressing order was nullified by modern technology?
Azrael 5
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Daily Mail have followed the pack https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...obsession.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailUK
Because the trial judge and the appeals court decided he got a fair trial.
Is your argument that nobody can get a fair trial if their case is discussed on the internet against the wishes of a jurisdiction? This is just a stupid argument.
Can't read here, any chance you could post the relevant text?
It is probable the rape allegation was made after the arrest for murder, my logic path tells me.
Rolfe
Adult human female
This is the header summary.
Rolfe
Adult human female
If an accused on trial for rape has already been identified as having murdered another sexual partner it could well be that no fair trial could happen.
Several possibilities, I think this covers them.
* A complaint was made and he was charged with rape before Dec 1
* A complaint was made and no charges had been laid before Dec 1 but were laid after he was arrested and charged with murder.
* A complaint was made and charges laid after he was arrested and charged with murder.
I think the third is by far most likely.
The trial will be very important for his attempts later at parole and almost all his future travails, and it is hard to see how such a trial will work in the NZ context. I guess imagine this mess in Scotland or Ireland for comparison.
* A complaint was made and he was charged with rape before Dec 1
* A complaint was made and no charges had been laid before Dec 1 but were laid after he was arrested and charged with murder.
* A complaint was made and charges laid after he was arrested and charged with murder.
I think the third is by far most likely.
The trial will be very important for his attempts later at parole and almost all his future travails, and it is hard to see how such a trial will work in the NZ context. I guess imagine this mess in Scotland or Ireland for comparison.
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LondonJohn
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Firstly, it doesn't strike me as a mess at all. It's far from uncommon in high-profile cases for other alleged victims to come forward on account of the publicity related to the first trial (sometimes these latter accusations are untrue, sometimes they're true....), and for the person on trial subsequently to go on trial a second (and even third or fourth) time on charges arising from these later accusations.
In particular, we've seen lots of this around the whole "metoo" movement and around investigations/trials related to historic sex offence accusations. And very often, the defendants concerned are well-known public figures. While it's clearly not wholly desirable for, e.g., Rolf Harris to have gone on trial again on additional historic sex offence charges, at a point when I'd venture to say that every single adult in the UK knew very well that he'd been convicted on several similar charges in his first trial.... this is the point when the judge's instructions to the second (and third, etc) jury are absolutely critical: the judge must compel the jury, in the most severe terms, to assess the defendant's guilt or non-guilt purely upon evidence and argument put to them in this particular trial, and not to let their opinion be coloured by knowledge of the outcome of previous trials (although E&W law increasingly allows - under very strict circumstances - for "similar fact" evidence to be introduced to indicate a pattern of repeat offending).
So I don't see any particular issues around the man who's just been convicted of Millane's murder subsequently standing trial again on fresh criminal charges (provided, as I said, the trial judge directs the jury explicitly and firmly).
And also, I'm not sure what you mean by "The trial will be very important for his attempts later at parole". This man is 100% guaranteed to receive a life sentence for the Millane murder - the only issues to resolve are a) whether - and if so, by how much - any psychiatric reports or other issues contribute to an adjustment in the number of years he must spend in prison before even being considered for parole. But that number of years is effectively certain to be well in excess of 10.
So the issue of parole has zero short-term (or even medium-term) relevance here. The only issue in which his near-term release from prison would be relevant is around any appeal he lodges, and if he's subsequently granted leave to appeal. However, I'd say that even if this happens, there's also virtually no chance that the Court of Appeal would grant him parole pending his appeal being heard. Furthermore, I'd say that even if he's granted leave to appeal, and his appeal successfully quashes his conviction in favour of a retrial, there's still a very low chance that he'd be released on bail pending such a retrial.
LondonJohn
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I fundamentally disagree with your analysis here.
It's effectively immaterial as to whether this man had the intent to seriously injure or kill Millane at the point when he began choking her. For the sake of argument, we can posit that he didn't have any such intent at that point.
But....
....the only important factor to consider is whether or not this man must have had intent to seriously injure or kill Millane at some point before he actually did cause her death.
And the striking evidence which convinces me (and, it would appear, the trial jury) that this man must indeed have had the intent to seriously injure or kill Millane at some point before he caused her death is - as I've argued so, so many times before - as follows: he must by definition have continued to apply a strong choke hold to Millane's neck for a very considerable period of time after she fell into unconsciousness.
Now, this action is (IMO, and apparently in the opinion of the jury also) wholly incompatible with that of a man whose sole innocent intent is to perform an erotic asphyxiation act upon a sexual partner, with the sole aim of heightening her sexual arousal. Once she'd been choked unconscious - a point which cannot fail to be noticed by the one doing the choking, on account of the fact that she'd have become limp and unresponsive with her eyes closed - the "aim of the game" would clearly and obviously have been surpassed.
Someone whose sole intent was to assist in the heighened sexual arousal of his sex partner would have released his grip at that point (or at most, within several seconds thereafter), in order to allow his partner to regain consciousness. But what the man in this case did instead was to carry on choking the limp, lifeless body of Millane for many dozens of seconds further. There can (again IMO, and apparently in the opinion of the jury also) be no other explanation for this than that he must have intended to cause Millane serious injury or death. And that's murder.
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Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
Senior lawyers and women’s organisations have condemned the increasing use of “rough sex gone wrong” as a courtroom defence to the murder of women and called for a change to the law in the UK.
In the wake of the conviction of British backpacker Grace Millane’s killer in New Zealand, researchers have revealed a tenfold rise over the past two decades in the number of times similar claims have been made in UK courts.
According to the campaign group We Can’t Consent to This, in the past decade 30 women and girls have been killed in what was claimed to have been consensual violent sexual activity in the UK.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/nov/22/concern-over-use-rough-sex-gone-wrong-defence-uk-courts
In the wake of the conviction of British backpacker Grace Millane’s killer in New Zealand, researchers have revealed a tenfold rise over the past two decades in the number of times similar claims have been made in UK courts.
According to the campaign group We Can’t Consent to This, in the past decade 30 women and girls have been killed in what was claimed to have been consensual violent sexual activity in the UK.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/nov/22/concern-over-use-rough-sex-gone-wrong-defence-uk-courts