A man with a horrific history of violence against his former partners, including beating one to death with a frozen dog roll, has been found guilty of the manslaughter of another partner.
A jury in the High Court at Wellington found Malcolm Alan Francis, 54, an invalid beneficiary, of Porirua, guilty of killing Cambodian woman Wathanak Tea, 37. The jurors deliberated for seven hours. Francis was remanded in custody until May 2 for sentencing.
Francis had pleaded not guilty to a charge of murdering Ms Tea between December 26 and 29, 2001, at her Johnsonville flat. Ms Tea's body has never been found, but her blood was spattered around the flat.
The jury did not know that Francis had killed his second wife and stabbed his first wife in the throat with a knife. Another partner claimed Francis had beaten her, but she was too frightened to complain to police at the time.
Her testimony and the evidence of his other convictions were excluded from his latest trial.
The charge against Francis was reduced to manslaughter after a last-minute application by his lawyer, Mike Antunovic, was granted by Justice Ellen France on Thursday morning.
Police had intended to present evidence of Francis' 1984 conviction for the manslaughter of his second wife, Janet, and testimony from a former partner about his violence. But, at a hearing on December 6, Justice France ruled the evidence out.
Police in Hastings tried to introduce evidence of Francis' violent past during his trial in 1984 for the murder of his second wife, Janet, who was beaten with a frozen dog roll. But details of an attack on his first wife, Francoise, in Chatham, England, in 1975, were ruled out.
Francis was found not guilty of murdering Janet, but guilty of her manslaughter, and sentenced to four years' jail.
- NZPA
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