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.