R v Williams

[2025] NZHC 800

IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND AUCKLAND REGISTRY

I TE KŌTI MATUA O AOTEAROA TĀMAKI MAKAURAU ROHE

CRI-2023-004-006629

[2025] NZHC 800

THE KING

v

SERGIO FEDERICO WILLIAMS

Hearing:	8 April 2025
Appearances:	C Paterson and R Thompson for the Crown L Smith for the Defendant
Sentenced:	8 April 2025

SENTENCING NOTES OF ANDERSON J

Solicitors:

Meredith Connell, Auckland

R v WILLIAMS [2025] NZHC 800 [8 April 2025]

Sentence

[1]                 Mr Williams, you appear for sentence having been found guilty by a jury of the murder of Herbert Bradley on 23 August 2023.1

[2]                 Before we begin, I want to acknowledge the family of Mr Bradley and their supporters who are here today. I extend the Court’s utmost sympathy to you for losing Mr Bradley in such terrible circumstances.

[3]                 Mr Williams, when a person is convicted of murder, they are required to be sentenced to life imprisonment unless there are special circumstances which mean that a sentence of life imprisonment would be manifestly unjust.2 Your counsel says this is such a case and that I should instead impose a finite sentence. The Crown says a sentence of life imprisonment is appropriate and that the minimum term of 10 years should be imposed.

Facts of the offending

[4]                 Before addressing these submissions, I first summarise the facts of your offending as I have found them. You met Mr Bradley in July 2023 in a chance encounter, some weeks prior to his death. At that time Mr Bradley was 70 years old. He was experiencing some cognitive decline and had some underlying health issues. He was living in the Uptown Apartments in Upper Queen Street with Ms Bradley, his adult daughter. Mr Bradley invited you to stay with him in the apartment while your car was getting fixed. Mr Bradley’s daughter went to stay with a friend so that Mr Bradley could have her room while you occupied his room.

[5]                 At some point, you invited Sophie Rutland to stay at the apartment who you had met on Facebook. The three of you lived together in the apartment for approximately 13 days.

[6]                 On the night before Mr Bradley’s death you and Ms Rutland had been out at the home of one of your friends. You had an argument about how Ms Rutland had

1      Pursuant to s 167 of the Crimes Act 1961.

2      Crimes Act 1961, s 172 and Sentencing Act 2002, s 10.

been interacting with one of your friends. In your words she was “playing up” and you got pretty angry at her.  The argument recommenced the following  morning,  23 August 2023.

[7]                 Mr Bradley was there when you got up. He and Ms Rutland sat on the couch having coffee while you had a shower. You could hear them talking and laughing. You opened the bathroom door and blurted out something. You were tense and wound up. Mr Bradley went and got a knife from the kitchen and held it behind his back.  By this time you had returned to the bathroom. Mr Bradley told you that he needed you to leave the apartment, picking up on a previous request. He said that you had been there long enough.

[8]                 You went into the bedroom and you and Mr Bradley argued. You were refusing to accept that you should leave and you did not want to go with him to the Property Managers’ office to talk about that. You were swearing and raising your voice.

[9]                 You then went to sit with Ms Rutland on the couch while Mr Bradley went outside on to the balcony of the apartment. You were swearing at Ms Rutland and repeatedly telling her to get into the bedroom. She did not want to go in with you.

[10]             You then began to squeeze in behind Ms Rutland on the couch and forcibly push her off with your feet. She continued to resist for a bit then stood up from the couch. Mr Bradley  came back inside  from the balcony  and presented  the knife.  Ms Rutland described in detail how he was holding the knife by his side. It was not in a threatening way. He told you to leave Ms Rutland alone and then moved towards you with the knife.

[11]             You picked up a bar stool and swung it at Mr Bradley, hitting him in the face and making him stumble. Mr Bradley went to move towards you again with the knife. This time, you grabbed the knife by the blade and bent it up towards the ceiling. The two of you were struggling and both pushing the knife away from each other. You pushed your head against Mr Bradley. At this point, Mr Bradley was going up against the sliding door in the apartment. He was thrown off balance by his top half being pushed away.

[12]             Mr Bradley’s grip became weaker and you were able to pull his fingers off the knife, enabling you to control both ends of the knife. Mr Bradley still had his fingers on the knife at the point you either gained control of the knife or Mr Bradley gave it up.

[13]             You stabbed Mr Bradley three times: once to the left side of his face, near his left eye, once to his left shoulder and once to the right side of his neck. All wounds tracked in a downwards direction.

[14]             Mr Bradley died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The cause of death was a stab wound to the right side of his neck. This tracked from right to left in a downwards direction.

[15]             You and Ms Rutland did not assist after Mr Bradley had been stabbed. Instead, after Mr Bradley left the apartment to find help, you packed up your possessions, went down to the lobby and stepped over his body before exiting the apartment and going to the van in the carpark. You were arrested there shortly afterwards.

Victim impact statements

[16]             You have heard the victim impact statements of Mr Bradley’s family members.3 Mr Bradley was a strong provider, protector and supporter of his now adult children who lost their mother at an early age. They have described the crushing consequences your actions have had on them and on the wider whanau.

[17]             You have deprived them of their father’s continuing kindness, support and guidance. Sadly, you have also deprived them of the opportunity to give back to their father in his senior years as he started to need support from them. You have not only changed Mr Bradley’s whanau’s lives forever, your actions will mean the next generation will not get to know their grandfather and share milestones of life with him.

3      I recognise that aspects of Mr Hendriks’ and Ms Kora’s victim impact statements were in overly emotive terms.

Principles and purposes of sentencing

[18]             Mr Williams, in sentencing you, I must have regard to the need to hold you accountable for the harm done by your offending, the need to promote in you a sense of responsibility for and acknowledgement of that harm and, importantly, the need to denounce and deter the conduct in which you were involved.4

[19]             I take into account the gravity of your offending including the seriousness of this type of offending as indicated by the maximum penalty. I am conscious of the desirability of consistency with appropriate sentencing levels between similar offending and committing similar offences. I am also mindful that I must impose the least restrictive outcome that is appropriate in all the circumstances.

Would a sentence of life imprisonment be manifestly unjust?

[20]             As I have said, the law requires that you be sentenced to life imprisonment unless there are special circumstances that mean such a sentence would be manifestly unjust.5

[21]             Your counsel argues that life imprisonment would be manifestly unjust. She says it was Mr Bradley who brought the knife, Mr Bradley who presented the knife and Mr Bradley who attacked with the knife in his hand. She submits the circumstances of this offending are unique such that life imprisonment would be manifestly unjust and that a finite sentence should be imposed.

[22]             Your counsel accepts that there have been relatively few cases which have been considered to meet the high threshold of manifestly unjust. The cases have tended to involve situations such as a mercy killing, battered defendants suffering severe and prolonged abuse, an offender suffering from major psychotic illness, offenders who did not commit the principal offending and offenders who were extremely young.6

4      Sentencing Act 2002, s 7(1)(a), (b), (e) and (f).

5      Crimes Act, s 172 and Sentencing Act, s 102. This is not a case where s 104(1) circumstances are engaged with respect to imposing a minimum period of imprisonment of at least 17 years.

6      R v Cole [2017] NZHC 517 at [48].

[23]             Of course, examples are not strict categories and do not create an exhaustive list. The Court of Appeal has accepted that it may be possible for the Court to consider a situation of “excessive self-defence” as one which may result in a sentence of life imprisonment being manifestly unjust. The question is one of fact and judgement.7 In no case to date have the circumstances put forward for excessive self-defence been sufficient to overcome the presumption of a sentence of life imprisonment.8 This reflects the exceptional circumstances required to constitute manifest injustice. As Justice Katz has put it, these would need to be “unusual or extreme”.9

[24]             Mr Williams, it is Mr Bradley who picked up the knife and presented it to you. I accept that this does distinguish this case from the cases your counsel referred me to, where the Court rejected that a finite sentence should be imposed in a situation of excessive self-defence10. I agree that this is a mitigating factor of the offending. I have considered your counsel’s submission that there were opportunities for both of you to de-escalate the situation and of the role of Mr Bradley in it. I accept it was not one way traffic. However, I accept the Crown’s submission that standing back and looking at the overall circumstances of the offending, the facts are not sufficient to displace the presumption of life imprisonment.

[25]In summary, I accept in the broad sense you were the initial aggressor.

(a)You and Ms Rutland had been arguing that morning. Mr Bradley first obtained the knife for protection as a response to your demeanour and agitated state. As Ms Rutland said, your “character changed” and you were being “a bit gangsta” and acting “g’ed” up.

(b)Mr Bradley was not holding the knife initially in a threatening manner. You were being aggressive, belligerent and refusing to accept that you needed to leave with Mr Bradley. You were acting aggressively towards Ms Rutland and trying to push her off the couch and get her to

7      Daken v R [2010] NZCA 2012 at [68]; R v Rapana [2015] NZHC 3551 at [22].

8      Other cases are R v Cochrane, French and Sullivan [2020] NZHC 1485 and R v Broughton [2017] NZHC 6712.

9      R v Rapana, above n 7 at [22].

10     Daken v R, above n 7; R v Cochrane, French and Sullivan, above n 8; R v Rapana, above n 7 and

R v Broughton, above n 8.

go to your room. Mr Bradley then presented the knife in response to this aggressive and escalating behaviour and in an apparent attempt to protect Ms Rutland from it.

(c)Prior to the final altercation leading to Mr Bradley’s death, you had knocked Mr Bradley in the jaw with the bar stool. During the next scuffle, you both had your hands on the knife but you were able to get control of it and inflict three stab wounds. Ms Rutland saw only one. I accept that you had more control of the knife than Ms Rutland saw.

(d)In the altercation, you overpowered a vulnerable victim. Mr Bradley was a 70 year old man who was overweight, unfit, unsteady on his feet, and lacking agility. In contrast, you were 35 years old, 17 centimetres taller, lean and in much better physical condition.

(e)Once you got control of the knife, you were not acting in self-defence. The jury accepted that contention with their verdict. As Ms Smith submits, that aspect is simply what is inherent in the offence of murder. However, you did not get seek to move away at the point you obtained control, or at least inflict a less than lethal wound. I find that you were motivated by anger when you stabbed Mr Bradley. Your own prison phone calls show this.

(f)You then showed a callous disregard for Mr Bradley. I do not accept Ms Smith’s submission that this is negated by your feelings towards Mr Bradley at the time. Neither you nor Ms Rutland tried to administer first aid or called an ambulance. Your refusal to help was intentional. You left Mr Bradley to go and try to find help for himself. Mr Bradley made his way out of the apartment down to the building manager’s office. You and Ms Rutland packed up your bags and left, literally walking over Mr Bradley as he lay dying on the floor.

[26]             In addition to the facts relating to the offending, your counsel relies on factors personal to you as reasons why imposition of a life sentence would be manifestly unjust. In particular, she points to the Alcohol and Other Drug Assessment report that

identified methamphetamine use disorder, cannabis use disorder, possible ADHD diagnosis and your difficult childhood. I have read this report as well as the s 27 report and I have listened carefully to your counsel’s submissions today as to your personal background. Your mother suffered a brain injury when you were two and your father then died of a stroke when you were four. Your family moved to New Zealand and ultimately your mother remarried when you were nine. You suffered childhood trauma as a direct result of abuse by your stepfather and by witnessing immediate threats to your mother. I accept you had an unstable family environment and report unstable living conditions in adulthood. The report before the Court suggests a link between your difficult childhood and your possible ADHD and responses on the day of your offending and potential rehabilitation.

[27]             I do not consider these personal factors in combination with the circumstances of the offending is sufficient to make this a case where a life sentence is manifestly unjust. This is not a situation where you were suffering from severe mental health problems, as in the cases of Cole;11 and Van Hermit.12 In many cases involving a murder the offender has experienced drug addiction or a troubled upbringing. In short, your possibly undiagnosed ADHC and background factors do not lead me to view the circumstances as calling for a finite sentence.

[28]So Mr Williams, I conclude that you will be sentenced to life imprisonment.

Minimum period

[29]             I turn to what minimum non-parole period is required to hold you accountable, to denounce your conduct, to deter others and to protect the community. In assessing the appropriate minimum period, I have considered the cases referred to me by counsel.13

[30]             The aggravating features of the offending in this case are Mr Bradley’s vulnerability, your actions after you inflicted the fatal wound on him, and the extent of the harm you have caused to the victims. There are mitigating features. The

11     R v Cole, above n 6.

12     R v Van Hemert [2020] NZHC 3203.

13     R v Rapana, above n 8; R v Filoa [2022] NZHC 2461.

offending was not premeditated. The immediate context was a short altercation with Mr Bradley when both of you had been attempting to gain control of the knife. As I have said, Mr Bradley was the one to pick up the knife and he initially advanced on you. As your counsel notes, the Court must take into account the conduct of the victim when sentencing.14

[31]             As to factors personal to you, you have an extensive criminal history. You were still subject to a sentence of one year imprisonment when you murdered Mr Bradley. You have a history involving possession of a knife in a public place. You are on an active charge for a further such charge relating to alleged offending four weeks prior to Mr Bradley’s murder. I agree with the Crown that this is of some concern. However, I am satisfied that no uplift is necessary for these factors, given the lengthy prison term you will now face; and the relatively low severity of your prior convictions compared to the charge of murder. The Crown does not suggest otherwise.

[32]             I have considered your letter of remorse, although this stands in stark contrast to your attitude on the phone calls from prison. The letter focusses on the effect of the event rather than your remorse for your role in it.

[33]             I referred earlier to the reports I have received outlining an unformalised ADHD diagnosis, drug addiction, adverse childhood factors and the potential causal link between this and your responses that day. I take these personal factors into account in imposing the lowest minimum term of imprisonment of murder of 10 years.

[34]I agree with the Crown that the lowest minimum term is appropriate.

Sentence

[35]             Mr Williams, for the murder of Herbert Bradley, I sentence you to life imprisonment. You will serve a minimum term of 10 years.

[36]Please stand down.

Anderson J

14     Mareikura v R [2012] NZCA 108 and Sentencing Act, s 9(2)(c).