Bay of Plenty child murder: Aaron Izett appeals sentence for death of Nevaeh Ager, citing meth addiction

A Bay of Plenty father who blamed methamphetamine-induced psychosis for his brutal killing of his 2-year-old daughter five years ago has asked the Court of Appeal to reduce his minimum term of imprisonment due to a long-term drug addiction that started when he was a homeless teen in Melbourne.

Maketū resident Aaron George Izett, 42, claimed at trial that he was not guilty by reason of insanity for the death of toddler Nevaeh Ager, who was found face-down and underwater in an estuary with two large rocks on top of her in nearby Little Waihi in March 2019.

Jurors in the High Court at Rotorua rejected his insanity claim, finding him guilty of murder in November 2020, and Justice Christine Gordon sentenced him several months later to life imprisonment with a minimum period of imprisonment of 17 years before he could apply for parole.

Appearing before a Court of Appeal panel in the High Court at Auckland yesterday, appellate defence lawyer Ron Mansfield KC asked Justices Sally Fitzgerald, Edwin Wylie and Rebecca Edwards to find the 17-year non-parole period “manifestly unjust” and instead impose a 14-year minimum period.

“The circumstances in this case could not be more tragic or heart-wrenching,” Mansfield said, adding that Izett “struggles daily” with what he did to his daughter and remains “in a state of disbelief as to how this could have happened”.

That is a punishment in itself, he suggested.

A forensic pathologist testified during the 2020 trial that Nevaeh is believed to have suffered up to 70 or 80 injuries - covering almost every part of her body - before she was drowned by Izett, all while her mother was in hospital giving birth to her brother. At least two household implements were believed to have been used in the severe beating, which may have rendered the child unconscious.

Maketū toddler Nevaeh Ager, 2, was murdered by her father Aaron Izett in March 2019.

Crown prosecutors would later describe Izett as having been motivated by “meth rage” during the attacks on Nevaeh and three others over two days but disputed that he was suffering psychosis to the extent he didn’t know what he was doing was morally wrong.

Izett testified he had no memory of hurting his daughter or lashing out at police - biting an officer - when he was later arrested. The last thing he remembered, he said, was watching a Peppa Pig cartoon with her.

“We don’t hit our child,” he said in the witness box.

He was held in a mental health facility after his arrest. Izett testified he was confused at the time and thought he was in a spaceship.

“People were walking around, blip, blip,” he told jurors. “I thought I was abducted, my fingers had bandages on and I thought they were gone and missing.

“ ... Sounds mad, but two people came up to me wearing gold uniforms and there were balloons behind their heads. I was hooked up to machines and thought the nurses were experimenting on me ... I was very delusional.”

At his sentencing in the High Court at Tauranga, the judge would later apply a provision of the Sentencing Act that calls for a minimum non-parole period of at least 17 years - unless manifestly unjust - for murders deemed to have been committed with an especially “high level of brutality, cruelty, depravity or callousness” or cases in which the victim was especially vulnerable due to age.

The sentencing judge was right to apply those factors to this case, Mansfield conceded. But the judge erred in not finding the end result manifestly unjust due to Izett’s mental health impairment at the time resulting from his long-standing addiction to methamphetamine, he argued.

Maketū father Aaron Izett was found guilty of murdering his 2-year-old daughter. Photo / NZME

Even if jurors didn’t agree Izett met the narrow legal definition of insanity, there’s no question he was in an “extreme” state of drug intoxication that day and was “clearly psychotic” due to his addiction, Mansfield argued. He said case law has evolved in recent years, with the courts having adopted a “more modern and accepting approach to mental health and addiction” that should apply in this case.

When Parliament adopted the 17-year minimum non-parole provision as part of the Sentencing Act, it surely intended it to be used for people who were aware of what they were doing, not those with mental health issues, Mansfield argued.

“Addiction goes to the very core of culpability - of moral responsibility,” he said.

Izett, who moved to New Zealand from Australia 20 years ago, did not attend yesterday’s hearing.

Crown prosecutor Zannah Johnston said there were issues with his appellate lawyer’s claims, including whether he was suffering from psychosis in the first place. An expert witness for the Crown said he was suffering drug-induced delirium, in which a person can’t remember what happened, instead of meth-induced psychosis, in which a person might lose the ability to tell right from wrong.

That suggestion was contested at trial, with Izett’s then-lawyer describing him as having been “out of touch with reality”. Johnston also suggested a long-term addiction hadn’t been established at trial, with Izett claiming he had been taken to a gang pad and forced to take the drug.

She also noted another provision of the Sentencing Act that states “the court must not take into account by way of mitigation the fact that the offender was ... affected by the voluntary consumption or use of alcohol or any drug”.

“The court is being asked to accept he was so addicted he had no choice,” she said, suggesting it would set a bad precedent if drug abuse was considered “involuntary” given the “terrible impact addiction has on our society”.

Izett also appealed his conviction in 2021 but later abandoned the appeal.

The Court of Appeal justices reserved their decision for the current appeal.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.