Death of Grace Millane
The mother of murdered backpacker Grace Millane told her killer she is tormented over “the terror and pain she must have experienced at your hands”. Speaking via video-link at Auckland High Court, Millane said: “As a mother I would have done anything to change places with her. I sit full of guilt knowing I couldn’t help her, that I should have been there. She died terrified and alone in a room with you”.
The 28-year-old man who murdered the backpacker still cannot be named despite being handed a life sentence.
BDSM, consent and the so-called 'rough sex defence' will be discussed as the Domestic Abuse Bill begins its passage through parliament.
This wasn’t a sex game gone wrong, this was violence against women going the way it normally does, journalist Sophie Wilkinson writes.
Jurors in Auckland, New Zealand, unanimously agreed that the man, who cannot be named, was guilty of strangling the 21-year-old.
“I thought, ‘this can’t be the way that I die,’” she told Auckland High Court.
The man is accused of strangling the British backpacker, and shoving her body inside a suitcase before burying her in a forested area.
The jury was shown footage of the 22-year-old walking arm in arm with the accused.
The trial into the murder of British backpacker Grace Millane has come to an end in New Zealand, with the conviction of a 27-year-old man. Millane was on a round-the-world trip when she disappeared in Auckland last December, after going on a Tinder date with the man. He pleaded not-guilty, claiming that Millane’s death was accidental.
The 27-year-old defendant claims Millane died during rough, consensual sex at his apartment.