Sentencing a Killer

A 18 years non-parole, life sentence was handed down to Clayton Weatherston by Judge Judith Potter.

Weatherston murdered his student/girlfriend Sophie Elliott on January 9th last year with a savage mutilating attack stabbing her 216 times with scissors and a knife. He was her economics lecturer at Otago University. His

Justice Potter summed up saying that the crime ranked among "the very worst murders".

"I am in no doubt that this murder was committed with a high degree of callousness and brutality," Potter said.

She said some degree of planning in the murder was clear and Weatherston's evidence of regularly carrying a knife in his laptop bag was "fanciful".

"I consider it entirely relevant and appropriate to take in to account the prisoners actions .. in continuing the attack after she was dead, including the deliberate and gross mutilation of her body," Potter said.

It was an "appalling attack" where Weatherston had used a knife and a pair of scissors.

"The continuing attack was very much part of the circumstances of her death," Potter said.

Potter said she seriously doubted that Weatherston's mental condition had any part to play in the murder. His behaviour was considered cold and rational by a public that grew too familiar with his manifest self-delusion.

A justice system that is transparent is extremely hard in the face of "media intrusion". Not that the media's role in justice is a bad thing, it is really a necessary part of the process. Media intrusion may lead to media involvement, and that is a danger.

The sentencing appears to fit the crime. Each of the 216 cuts is represented by one month in jail, served consecutively. The judge realising the weight of Weatherston's compulsions that now can haunt him monthly will teach more about remorse than a less numerically considered sentence may have.

Police lay more charges

Auckland actor Rob Mokaraka was shot by police when allegedly approaching them with a meat cleaver and knives.

The alleged possession of an offensive weapon and assault with a weapon charges were laid during an Auckland District Court bedside hearing at the Auckland Hospital on 29 July. The alleged offender has been remanded on bail to appear in court on August 19.

Being in hospital under police guard, he was unable to attend the district court on August 19 for the hearing, and a medical certificate was presented.

Charges for possession of firearms and resisting arrest have been added.

Stuff article

Positive consent in sexual assault cases

"The Justice Minister’s comments on the idea of ‘positive consent’ in sexual assault cases has rightly raised eyebrows (and some heckles) on all sides in the criminal justice debate."

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Provocative Defense

REVIEW

TV One
The Killing of Sophie Elliot
August 5th 2009

Clayton Weatherston murdered Sophie Elliot brutally by stabbing her 216 times. He used Provocation as his defense claiming it was manslaughter. Throughout his defense he manifested narcissistic personality disorder, an inflated idea of his own self worth and in so doing said all sorts of nasty stuff about his victim. There is now grounds to remove provocation as a legal defense due to public disgust with his blatantly narcissistic performance.

The programme explored the more provocative side of this real life drama. That of his narcissistic personality disorder. Interviews with psychiatrists support what seems evident in this case, the man was guilty and sealed her fate from the very start of their imbalanced and violent relationship.

Was the magnitude of his crime great enough to forgo this parade of the ego of a sick mind? Is the exposure and amplification of raw detail good for justice?

The programme use narrated reenactments effectively. The murder scene from the point of view of the mother of the murdered girl was narrated by the mother, while a scene in which an actor portrayed her played out the evil scenario. This was a brutal cross-over between intimacy and violence. Very effective television.

5 times elected but once convicted

Disgraced ex-MP Taito Phillip Field would have to give up on his benefits accrued after 5 terms as an MP after being found guilty on 26 counts involving bribery, immigration and personal gain, if The Prime Minister John Key gets his way - he wants Field to lose his employment benefits due to the conviction.

Radio Rape

Radio Rape victim calls off police investigation of her on air lie detector session with her mother that revealed she had been raped at the age of 12.