R v Bonner

[2012] NZHC 1581

IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND CHRISTCHURCH REGISTRY

CRI-2012-009-174 [2012] NZHC 1581

THE QUEEN

v

KEITH DONALD BONNER

Hearing:         4 July 2012

Counsel:         E Bulger for Prisoner

K B Bell and N Robson for Crown

Judgment:      4 July 2012

SENTENCING REMARKS OF LANG J

R V KEITH DONALD BONNER HC CHCH CRI-2012-009-174 [4 July 2012]

[1]      Mr Bonner, you appear for sentence today having pleaded guilty in this Court to a charge of murder.   As you know, the mandatory, and only, sentence for that charge in your circumstances is one of life imprisonment.

Background

[2]      The victim in this case was Tracey Lee Morris, who was 46 years on the date of her death.  You had known her for about 23 years.  You clearly regarded her as a very good friend, and for some period you were involved in a relationship with her. That ended some six or seven years ago, but you maintained good relations with her and obviously kept in contact with her.

[3]      On New Year’s Eve last, you invited Ms Morris round to your house for dinner on Tuesday 3 January 2012.   She arrived at your house at about 6.20 pm, bringing with her some bottles of wine.  Clearly you anticipated that the two of you were likely to have a few drinks, because you had made up a bed for her in the sunroom so that she would not have to drive home after consuming alcohol. According  to  your  statement  to  the  police,  you  and  she  then  had  a  meal  and consumed a considerable amount of alcohol.

[4]      After dinner, she remained in the lounge at the address in a reclining chair watching DVDs on the television set.  You say you went into the kitchen and began doing the dishes. You say you do not remember anything at all about what happened after that. What we now know is that, by early the next morning, Ms Morris’ car was parked in a rural area.   Her body, partially unclad and battered and bruised, was found in the back seat.

[5]      You say that you woke up and found that she was not there.  By this I assume that you believed she had gone home.  You noticed, however, a very large amount of red staining on the carpet in the lounge area around the area of the chair in which she had been sitting.  You made no enquiries about what might have happened to her. Instead, over the next day or so, you hired a commercial cleaning machine and then proceeded to remove all traces of blood from the carpet.

[6]      The car containing Ms Morris’ body was seen on the road in the rural area the next morning, but it was not until a couple of days later on the Friday, that Ms Morris’ body was actually discovered.   The police were then advised, and a photograph of the vehicle was published in local newspapers.  You told police that you recognised the vehicle, and immediately concluded that you must have had something to do with the events that had given rise to her body being found in the car.

[7]      On the Saturday morning you then went to the Papanui Police Station and advised the police that you thought that you may have had something to do with it. When the police interviewed you, you told them quite frankly that you could remember nothing about the incident after the point at which you were washing dishes in the kitchen.  You said, however, that you accepted responsibility for what had happened and that you would accept that you should be held responsible for her death.

[8]      When the pathologist examined Ms Morris’ body, he found she had extensive injuries.  These included fractures to the front and rear of her skull, a fractured left eye socket, a broken nose, a broken tooth, extensive bruising to her face and two lacerations to the back of her head which had arisen from a very forceful collision with a round-edged item.  The pathologist concludes that Ms Morris was likely to have been rendered unconscious as a result of these injuries and that, in themselves, they were life threatening.

[9]      In addition, the pathologist found bruising to Ms Morris’ genitalia, extensive bruising, and he found a bite-mark on her left breast.  The pathologist is unable to say whether the bruising to the genitalia occurred through sexual activity or through physical force being applied in the form of a punch or a kick.

[10]     The pathologist also found that Ms Morris’ body exhibited all the signs of strangulation.  This had occurred when her leggings were wrapped tightly round her neck leaving ligature marks.   The leggings were applied with sufficient force to break Ms Morris’ larynx, and also to cause internal bruising to her throat.   This strangulation ultimately caused her death.

[11]     The end result, Mr Bonner, is that, quite clearly, whilst Ms Morris was sitting in the armchair in your lounge, you must have attacked her with blows to the head on numerous occasions causing the injuries that I have described.  Then, when she was probably unconscious, you strangled her using her own leggings with sufficient force to cause the injuries to her neck and throat that I have described.

[12]     When the police examined the outside of the house, they found a blood trail leading from the house to the area where her car was parked.  This leads the police to conclude that you must have dragged her from the house, grazing her body on the concrete driveway as you did so.  You must then have driven from your house to the road where the car was ultimately found.

Issue

[13]     In any case where the Court imposes a sentence of life imprisonment for murder, it must also impose a minimum term of imprisonment.[1]     Other than in exceptional circumstances, and  nobody suggests that these are present  here, the minimum term of imprisonment must be at least ten years.[2]    In other exceptional circumstances, the Court can impose a minimum term of imprisonment of 17 years or more,[3] but again, the Crown does not suggest that that is the case here.

[1] Sentencing Act 2002, s 103(1).

[2] Ibid, s 103(2).

[3] Ibid, s 104(1).

[14]     The issue I am required to determine is where, within the longer range of a minimum term of between ten years imprisonment and 16 to 17 years imprisonment, your offending lies.  I emphasise again that the sentence is one of life imprisonment, not the minimum term that I am about to impose.  It will be a matter for the parole authorities, and the parole authorities alone, to determine when it is safe for you to

be released into the community.

Sentencing Act 2002

[15]     In fixing a minimum term of imprisonment, the Court is required to have regard to four factors.[4]    These are that the minimum term must hold the offender accountable for the harm done to the victim and the community by the offending, it must denounce the conduct in which the offender was involved, it must deter the offender or other persons from committing the same, or similar, offending and it must protect the community from the offender.  Quite clearly, all of those matters are

engaged in this case.

[4] Ibid, s 103(2).

[16]     Obviously, the primary victim in this case was Ms Morris herself.  She was robbed of her life at the young age of 46.  But there is a much wider range of victims here, Mr Bonner, and you have heard from some of them today.  They are her family and her friends.  You have taken from them a much loved mother, daughter, sister, aunt and friend.  Nothing this Court can do will ever replace Ms Morris in the eyes of her family.   You have heard some victims read their impact victim statements today, and you know the devastating effect that your offending has had for Ms Morris’ family and friends.

[17]     Conduct such as this obviously must be denounced because it reflects wanton violence on a person who has done nothing whatsoever to deserve it.  The minimum term must also contain an element of deterrence, because any person who considers engaging in activities such as this must be deterred.

[18]     Finally there is an element here, and I say no more than that, of protecting the community.  You have no relevant previous convictions, and there is nothing about your past to suggest that you would ever have resorted to violence on this level.

Aggravating factors

[19]     Until I read the pre-sentence report, I had no idea what might have caused you to react in the way that you did towards a very dear friend.  The pre-sentence

report, however, provides significant insight into your life at the time of this offending.

[20]     The probation officer who prepared the report discussed your life at the time of the offending with your daughter.  She had been living with you up until shortly before this terrible event.  She says that you had become involved in using alcohol to such an extent that your personality was changing.  She describes a darker, indeed black, side to your personality that only emerged after you had consumed alcohol. Whereas  you  say that  you  were a social  drinker who only consumed  moderate amounts of alcohol, she makes it clear that the level of your alcohol consumption had increased alarmingly during the period leading up to the incident.

[21]     I  have  no  doubt  that  the  consumption  of  alcohol  was  what  caused  this incident.   I have no means of knowing, and nobody will ever know other than perhaps you, precisely what triggered it, but I am satisfied that your consumption of alcohol triggered the outbreak of extreme violence that led to Ms Morris’ death, and you and you alone must bear sole responsibility for that.

[22]     Counsel for the Crown and your counsel are largely in agreement regarding the factors that  I need  to take into account when assessing the minimum term. Clearly there are elements of breach of trust here, because Ms Morris was in your care that night and  you  were responsible for her welfare as  you  recognised by preparing the bed in which she was to sleep.  There is nothing to suggest that the evening was going to end up in any form of sexual encounter.   Indeed, your relationship appears to have been purely platonic.   Nevertheless, there are sexual aspects about your offending in the form of the bite to the breast and also the fact that  Ms  Morris  was  found  in  an  unclad  state.    I  regard  that  as  a  significant aggravating factor in the present case.  Having taken her life, you also robbed her of her dignity when you left her in the car that night naked for the world to see.

[23]     Counsel have referred me to a number of other cases in which the Court has imposed minimum terms of imprisonment on charges of murder.  Obviously they are of  only  limited  assistance  because  the  facts  of  all  cases  differ  so  greatly.

Nevertheless, I have derived some assistance from another case from this registry called R v Peach.[5]

[5] R v Peach HC Christchurch CRI-2008-009-013852, 3 December 2009.

[24]     In that case the offender had lured a woman to his house on a pretext of having found a stray cat that he wanted the organisation for whom the woman worked  to  take  away.    When  she  arrived,  he  assaulted  her  and  killed  her  by strangling her.  He then removed her body from his address and dumped it in a rural location.  From the brief description of the case I have just given, you will see that there are some similarities between that case and your offending.

[25]     That case had two aggravating factors that are not present in this case.  They are, first, an element of premeditation that I am satisfied was not present here, and also the fact that the offender had a lengthy list of previous convictions including convictions  for violence.   You  have no relevant previous  convictions  as  I have already recorded.   Nevertheless, there are two aggravating aspects about your offending that were not present in Peach.  The first of these is the fact that you were prepared to leave Ms Morris’ body in the state of undress in which it was ultimately found.  The second is that, rather than make any enquiry about her welfare, you set about systematically covering up the physical evidence of the crime during the days immediately after the incident.   I consider that those factors operate to make your offending more serious.

[26]     The  Judge  in  Peach  selected  a  starting  point  of  14  and  a  half  years imprisonment in relation to the minimum term.  I consider the same starting point should apply in the present case.  The aggravating factors in each case balance each other out, and I am satisfied that 14 and a half years is an appropriate starting point.

Mitigating factors

[27]     The Crown acknowledges that you are entitled to some credit for your guilty plea.  It points out, however, that the evidence against you was very strong and that it

was always likely that you would be convicted of murder.  Your counsel counters

that by saying that, although there was a strong case, it may only, if tested, have resulted in an end verdict of manslaughter.

[28]     I do not propose to embark on an analysis of that issue, because I am satisfied that your guilty plea must be given recognition.  First, and from the outset, you have acknowledged  that  you  and  you  alone  were  responsible  for  Ms  Morris’ death. Secondly, it saves Ms Morris’ family and friends the anguish of going through a criminal jury trial.  That would have been a traumatic experience for them, and your guilty plea saved them from it.  It must be given concrete recognition.

[29]     In addition, I am satisfied that you have demonstrated remorse in the sense that you have acknowledged responsibility and you show insight into the consequences of your offending.   This is demonstrated from a letter you have provided to me prior to sentencing.  I understand that your counsel has also provided a letter to the Crown for distribution to Ms Morris’ family and friends.  Thirdly, you are entitled to call in aid, to some extent, the fact that you have never broken the law in any serious way before.

[30]    In Peach, the sentencing Judge considered that the same sort of factors warranted a discount of 18 months, and I propose to apply the same discount here. The end result is that you will be required to serve a minimum term of 13 years imprisonment before you are eligible to apply for parole.

Sentence

[31]     On the charge of murder to which you have pleaded guilty, you are sentenced to  life  imprisonment.     You  are  also  ordered  to  serve  a  minimum  term  of imprisonment of 13 years before being eligible to apply for parole.

[32]     Stand down.

Lang J

Solicitors:

Crown Solicitor, Christchurch

Counsel:

E Bulger