Grace Millane: British backpacker killed by man who wanted ‘weird thrill and complete domination’ over women, court hears
Accused took ‘trophy’ photographs of university graduate because of ‘morbid sexual interest’, Crown alleges
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British backpacker Grace Millane was murdered by a man wanting a “weird thrill” and “complete domination” over women, a prosecutor has claimed.
Crown prosecutor Brian Dickey also alleged the defendant, a 27-year-old New Zealand man who cannot be named for legal reasons, took seven intimate “trophy” photographs of Millane’s body, according to Sky News.
This was because of a “morbid sexual interest”, Stuff.nz reports Mr Dickey as alleging.
In his closing statement on Thursday, Mr Dickey told Auckland High Court that after Millane’s death, the defendant watched pornography, arranged another Tinder date and searched the internet for the Waitakere Ranges, where the 21-year-old’s body was later found.
Mr Dickey told the murder trial that the defendant was “seeking total domination and some sort of weird thrill over women who were his sexual partners”.
The Crown alleges that the man strangled Millane during sexual intercourse at his apartment in Auckland on either 1 December or 2 December 2018 – the date of the University of Lincoln graduate’s 22nd birthday.
The defendant denies murder and claims Millane, from Wickford in Essex, asked him to place his hands around her neck during sex and that her death was an accident.
Mr Dickey told the jury that in order to kill Millane, the defendant would have had to have strangled her for between five and 10 minutes, according to Stuff.nz.
The prosecutor said she would have lost consciousness and become limp and lifeless, and alleged the defendant would have carried on strangling her.
“If that’s not reckless murder in this country, someone will have to explain to me what is,” he said.
He added that Millane’s interest in BDSM and sexual history, during which she had practised safe consensual choking with a former boyfriend, was irrelevant and that she did not “consent to murder”.
Mr Dickey also described the defendant as being “as cool as a cucumber” in the moments after Millane’s death when he searched the internet for large bags and bought a suitcase to bury her body in.
He told the jury they should find the accused guilty of murder and should not consider manslaughter.
However, the accused’s defence lawyer Ian Brookie said Millane’s death was an accident and that they must deliver a not guilty verdict.
Mr Brookie argued that the man panicked after her death and behaved “selfishly”, while his actions were “reprehensible, unacceptable”.
He claimed the accused was not experienced in BDSM and that he was “just a young man doing what women want him to do in the bedroom”.
“This is not murder, it’s a tragic, unintended, unforeseen accident,” Stuff.nz quoted him as saying.
Justice Simon Moore will sum up the case and give his directions to the jury on Friday before the jury retires to consider its verdict.
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