R v David William WEIGHTMAN [2005] NSWSC 1354

New South Wales Supreme Court

CITATION : R v David William WEIGHTMAN [2005] NSWSC 1354

HEARING DATE(S) : 10/10/05, 24/10/05-25/10/05

JUDGMENT DATE : 23 December 2005

JURISDICTION : Common Law Division

JUDGMENT OF : Hidden J at 1

DECISION : The offender is sentenced for the murder of his father to imprisonment for twenty-five years, with a non-parole period of nineteen years, to date from 2 February 2004. For the murder of his mother he is sentenced to imprisonment for twenty-five years, with a non-parole period of nineteen years, to date from 2 February 2007. He will be eligible for release on parole on 1 February 2026.

CATCHWORDS : CRIMINAL LAW - Sentence - two counts of murder - adoptive parents murdered by son to gain inheritance - full admissions to police - pleas of guilty - assistance to authorities

Crimes Act LEGISLATION CITED : Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act

Regina (Crown) PARTIES : DWW (Offender)

FILE NUMBER(S) : SC 3025/2004

D Howard SC (Crown) COUNSEL : S Hanley (Offender)

Solicitor for Public Prosecutions (Crown) SOLICITORS : Watsons Solicitors (Offender)

LOWER COURT JURISDICTION :

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COMMON LAW DIVISION CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

HIDDEN J

Friday 23 December 2005

3025/2004 Regina v David William Weightman

NON PUBLICATION ORDER – REVOKED 12 July 2006 REMARKS ON SENTENCE 1 HIS HONOUR: The offender, whose name has been suppressed until further order of this Court, has pleaded guilty to the murder of his adoptive parents at their home at Glen Alpine on 8 January 2000.

Facts 2 The basic facts are not in dispute. The offender was the only child of the deceased, and had been adopted by them shortly after his birth on 25 January 1979. 3 On 9 January 2000, a park ranger was conducting a routine patrol of Heathcote National Park, when he observed an area of mesh fence on the western side of Pipeline Road to be missing. Pipeline Road is a fire/service road running off Heathcote Road. The ranger got out of his vehicle and looked over an embankment. About twenty metres below him he saw a Mitsubishi Magna sedan, which belonged to the offender's father. Inside the car were the father, in the driver's seat, and the offender's mother, in the front passenger seat. Both were deceased. 4 Police attended the scene. In due course, a post-mortem examination was conducted and at that stage the deaths were considered to be accidental. There was no inquest. Later, however, concerns about the matter were expressed by the deceased mother's sister, Mrs Margaret Urwin and her husband, Alan Urwin. The forensic pathologist provided an amended report to the coroner in relation to each of the deceased, in which he said that he could not exclude death by foul play. 5 In relation to the father, the doctor noted that were bilateral thyroid cartilage fractures which could indicate some form of neck compression, and he could not exclude the possibility that he was dead before the vehicle left the road. He could not exclude the same possibility in relation to the mother. Toxicological analysis of the blood of each of them showed the presence of a sedative drug. In relation to both deceased he noted bruising on their arms and legs which was not consistent with trauma from a road accident, and the extent and severity of which were suggestive of some form of restraint or assault. 6 On 11 January 2000, police obtained a statement from the offender. He said that on 8 January he returned to the Glen Alpine home with a friend, to find that his parents were not there. He was not concerned about this, and he and his friend stayed at the home that night. It was not until later the following day that he was informed that his parents were deceased. The friend to whom he referred is the man whom he was later to name as his accomplice in the killings. On 15 November 2002 he took part in an electronically recorded interview with police, in which he was asked about conversations he was said to have had with another friend, both before and after the death of his parents, which suggested that he had planned and been involved in their deaths. He denied any such involvement. 7 There the matter rested until 1 February 2004, when he was confronted about the matter by Margaret Urwin, in the presence of her husband, and admitted that he was involved in the death of his parents. The police were informed, and on the following day he confirmed and expanded upon those admissions in videotaped interviews at a police station, at Pipeline Road and at the Glen Alpine home. He was charged with the murders the following day. 8 In those interviews he gave a detailed account of how he and an accomplice killed his parents and disposed of their bodies. He also admitted that the murders had been planned, for a financial motive, and that the method of the killings and disposal of the bodies had been decided over the two previous days. His father had been in employment and his mother was the proprietor of a child minding centre. They were well off. About two weeks before the killings he had discussed with his accomplice what he stood to gain by way of inheritance in the event of his parents' death. 9 Over the two days prior to the murders, the accomplice suggested that the parents be killed and offered to help the offender to do so. It was he who proposed the way in which the crimes should be carried out. It was agreed that he would be paid $17,000 for his assistance. The offender frankly acknowledged that his motive was to inherit a large sum of money. He denied that he (or his accomplice) bore any animosity towards his parents. Indeed, he said that he had had a loving relationship with them and that he had been well provided for. 10 On the evening in question, the offender and his accomplice went to the Glen Alpine home. His mother was in an upstairs bedroom and his father was watching television in the lounge room. He made a cup of tea for both of them, placing in each cup some sedative tablets supplied by his accomplice, which he understood to be Serapax. The intention was to asphyxiate them with a pillow while they were unconscious, and it was the accomplice who was to do this. 11 The offender waited outside the house while the accomplice asphyxiated his mother in the bedroom. It would seem that she was not unconscious, and he heard a sound emanate from her like a cry or a gasp. The accomplice then emerged from the house and told the offender that he would need some help with his father. The two men went into the lounge room, where the father was lying on a lounge, apparently drowsy. He held his father's legs while the accomplice held a pillow over his face. The father struggled for several minutes before he died. The offender demonstrated how this was done during the videotaped interview at the house. 12 The two men then carried the deceased to the Magna sedan, which was in the garage. The mother was placed in the front passenger seat. The offender could not recall where the father was placed but, most likely, it was on the back seat. The accomplice drove the Magna to the site at Pipeline Road, and he followed in his mother's car, a Hyundai coupe. There, the accomplice placed the father's body in the driver's seat of the Magna and the offender helped him push the car over the embankment. They left the scene in the Hyundai, driven by the offender. 13 He told police that he had smoked a small amount of cannabis early that day, and was under the influence of that drug "a little bit" at the time of the killings. I shall return to the question of his injection of drugs and his state of mind at the relevant time. 14 The report of another forensic pathologist confirmed that the bilateral fractures of the father's thyroid cartilage were typical of strangulation by compression of the throat. The mother had a heavy bruise on the inner aspect of her left upper arm, typically observed when a person has been pinioned or forcibly moved. Bruises on her forearms were characteristic of her having been gripped tightly, suggesting a scuffle. The same was true of bruises to her legs. The amount of sedative detected in the father's blood was enough to have made him drowsy. However, there was a lesser amount in the mother's blood and it was unlikely that it would have had any significant effect upon her. 15 In due course, the offender inherited his parents' estate, of a value of about $800,000. He sold the family home and the child minding centre to Mr and Mrs Urwin, and bought a home for himself. In the event, he did not pay his accomplice the promised $17,000.