Deaf woman's rapist and murderer has sentence cut

Emma Agnew

The Court of Appeal has reduced the sentence of convicted rapist and murderer Liam James Reid by three years.

A High Court jury found Reid guilty of the 2007 rape and murder of Christchurch deaf woman Emma Agnew, 20, and the rape, attempted murder, and robbery of a 21-year-old student in Dunedin just over a week later.

Justice Lester Chisholm sentenced Reid to preventive detention with a minimum non-parole period of 26 years in December last year.

Reid's lawyers appealed the conviction in the Court of Appeal in May, saying vital DNA evidence was not provided in time to be properly analysed.

They also appealed the type and length of sentence Reid was given.

The Court of Appeal dismissed Reid's appeal against conviction in its decision released today.

It said even if Reid could have shown the DNA in question was not his, that evidence was not pivotal to the case.

It maintained the sentence of preventive detention, but reduced the minimum parole period of 26 years for the murder conviction to 23 years and the 26-year sentence for the two rape convictions to 10 years for each count.

The court said in comparison with other murder cases where long non-parole sentences had been imposed 26 years was too long.

"We do not downplay the seriousness of this offending and... we are conscious of the substantial degrees of public concern about serious violent offending."

However, it was necessary to endeavour to administer the law on a principled and balanced basis, it said.

For the rape counts it was unclear whether a judge could impose a minimum non-parole period which was longer than the maximum term for that offending.

The court said it considered no purpose was served by sentencing in that way and it reduced the minimum period on the rape counts to 10 years.

Reid is serving the sentences concurrently.

Ms Agnew's suffocated body was found hidden in forest scrub behind the Spencer Park camping ground, 15km northeast of Christchurch.

The profoundly deaf young woman had been missing for 12 days after texting family to say she was planning to meet a man who was interested in buying her car.

The Dunedin victim was walking home in the early hours of the morning when she was attacked in bushes beside a carpark in the central city.

She was punched, choked, threatened and repeatedly raped by Reid, before she managed to belt him in the testicles and escape.

- NZPA