R v MITCHELL, Grant David [2012] NSWSC 694

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: R v MITCHELL, Grant David [2012] NSWSC 694 Hearing dates: 25 May 2012 Decision date: 22 June 2012 Jurisdiction: Common Law - Criminal Before: Hidden J Decision: Sentenced to 14 years, NPP 10 years, from 9.1.11 Catchwords: CRIMINAL LAW - sentence - murder - plea of guilty - reckless indifference to human life - domestic setting - offender surrendered to police after lengthy period at large - offence in 1987 - sentencing practice at that time Legislation Cited: Crimes Act 1900 Cases Cited: R v Thomson & Houlton [2000] NSWCCA 309, 49 NSWLR 383 R v MJR [2002] NSWCCA 129, 54 NSWLR 368 Texts Cited: Sentenced Homicides in New South Wales, 1990 - 1993 Category: Sentence Parties: Regina (Crown) Grant David Mitchell (offender) Representation: Counsel: Ms Kara Shead (Crown) Mr Paul Winch (offender) Solicitors: S Kavanagh - Solicitor for Public Prosecutions (Crown) SE O'Connor - Legal Aid Commission (offender) File Number(s): 2011/32243

REMARKS ON SENTENCE 1The offender, Grant David Mitchell, has pleaded guilty to the murder of his partner, Nella Poli, at their home in Zetland on 12 May 1987. It is common ground that the basis for murder is that the killing was done with reckless indifference to human life.

Facts 2The offender and Ms Poli, both of them natives of New Zealand, had been in a relationship for about 8 months. In the weeks leading up to her death Ms Poli had spoken to friends and family about leaving him. 3In the evening of 12 May 1987, the offender and Ms Poli were at home together. Early in the evening they had had sex. However, later an argument developed between them and there was a physical altercation. Around his neck the offender was wearing a pendant attached to a gold chain which Ms Poli had given him. As they struggled, she pulled the pendant from the chain and put it in her mouth. He grabbed her around the neck with his hands and then used a pair of pantyhose as a ligature in an attempt to make her cough the pendant up. They fell to the floor in the doorway between the lounge room and a downstairs bedroom. He straddled her as she lay on her back and held a pillow over her face to quieten her. Shortly afterwards, she stopped struggling but he continued to hold the pillow over her face. He then blacked out for a period. 4When he regained consciousness, he found that she had stopped breathing and had no pulse, and her face appeared blotchy. He carried her to the master bedroom upstairs. There he removed the jeans she was wearing and placed her on the bed. He covered her with a doona. He went back downstairs, where there was a photo of the two of them. He removed their faces from the photo, and placed two pins in the photo where Ms Poli's eyes had been. 5This account is a brief summary of what the offender told police many years later, when he was finally apprehended. It is consistent with the observations of a neighbour who went to the house the evening after the murder and found the deceased, and of police who attended the scene. She was seen to be lying on the bed underneath the doona, she was wearing undergarments, and she had marks around her neck. The photo was seen to have been defaced in the way the offender described. A post-mortem examination carried out the following day led to the conclusion that the cause of death was strangulation. However, that post-mortem examination was reviewed by a forensic pathologist in November 2011, and that pathologist found that it was not possible to say whether strangulation or suffocation was the more likely cause of death. 6Having left the house after the killing, the offender caught a train to Katoomba. There he contemplated committing suicide and destroyed his personal identification. He lived in the bush for a time, and then got a job in the Emu Plains area under a false name. With the introduction of the compulsory tax file number system, he fled to far north Queensland. There he worked on and off, doing manual labour for cash payment. He maintained this transient lifestyle, using three different aliases and avoiding police detection. A warrant for his arrest had been issued on 1 March 1988 but, despite numerous enquiries, police were unable to locate him. 7On 9 January 2011, he attended the police station at Atherton in Queensland, and surrendered himself. He told police that he was wanted for a murder committed in New South Wales in 1987. He said that he had had an argument with his girlfriend, at the end of it she was dead, and he had been on the run ever since. He took part in a recorded interview with Queensland detectives, saying that during an altercation with Ms Poli he had smothered her with a pillow. He told them about the circumstances of the killing and his subsequent actions to avoid apprehension. 8He took part in a further recorded interview with New South Wales police, in which he gave a detailed account of the killing. Extracts from that interview are set out in an agreed statement of facts which I received, but it is unnecessary to go to that detail in these remarks. In the Queensland interview he said that he did not intend to kill Ms Poli or to cause her serious harm, but he acknowledged that when he realised what he had done he took no steps to seek any medical assistance for her or to notify authorities.