News

Convicted murderer Clayton Weatherston has appealed his conviction in the Court of Appeal. The three judges on the Court of Appeal have reserved their decision until later in the year.

The 34 year old former University of Otago tutor was sentenced to a minimum of 18 years in prison two years ago for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Sophie Elliott, whom he stabbed more than 200 times in her parents’ home in 2008.

 
Weatherston argued at his trial that Elliott provoked him into killing her, and that the trigger for the attack was Elliott lunging at him with a pair of scissors.

 
This controversial defence of provocation was rejected by the jury and later repealed by the government. Part of the objection to the provocation defence was the impression that it put the victim on trial. The defence was only a partial one in the criminal justice system, and could have the effect of reducing a charge of murder to that of manslaughter if accepted by the jury.

 
In his appeal, Weatherston is arguing that he did not get a fair trial because his provocation defence was debated in the media before the jury reached their verdict. Weatherston’s lawyer, Robert Lithgow, said that “It was impossible for someone to get a fair hearing when the defence they were using was being publicly attacked”.
 

In focusing on the effect that the media had on the trial, Lithgow criticised the deputy president of the Law Commission, Warren Young, for giving a television interview about the provocation defence while the trial continued.

 
The Crown says that while the timing of the media coverage was unfortunate, it was not about Weatherston’s case specifically. Deputy Solicitor-General Cameron Mander said that public debate about provocation was limited to the legal principles while the trial continued. Young had not mentioned the Weatherston case in his television interview.

 
During the five-week trial in the Christchurch High Court, the jury was instructed to ignore all media coverage of the case. Mander said that no sound basis existed to think that the jury did not apply the law as Justice Potter had directed them to.
 

Weatherston’s lawyers have also asked the Court of Appeal to accept into evidence a transcript of a confidential speech made by trial judge Justice Judith Potter. In the speech to senior judges in January, Justice Potter said that television coverage of Weatherston’s defence appalled the public, and that throughout the trial the public grew to despise him and had sympathy only for his victim. Justice Potter further acknowledged the huge impact the news media had on the trial.

 
University of Otago Faculty of Law Professor Kevin Dawkins told Critic, “Media criticism of the defence of provocation is only relevant to the issue in whether the appellant received a fair trial, the right to which is guaranteed by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. The appellant is also appealing against the trial judge's misdirections on law, which is a ground recognised under the Crimes Act 1961. It would be improper for me to express an opinion on the grounds of appeal pending the Court of Appeal's judgment.”
 

Dawkins also said that, as the trial pre-dated the abolition of provocation on December 8 2009, if the Court of Appeal were to order a retrial, the partial defence of provocation would remain available to Weatherston. 
 

Sophie Elliott’s family was in court to hear the appeal last week, sitting across the aisle from Weatherston’s parents.