Designer's killer loses manslaughter appeal

The killer of celebrity interior designer David McNee has lost his appeal against a nine-year prison term for manslaughter.

The Court of Appeal said Phillip Layton Edwards' sentence was not out of line with comparable manslaughter cases.

At his trial, the court heard Edwards, 24, killed 55-year-old Mr McNee after he claimed a sex transaction went too far.

Edwards had been out of prison just 11 days - and already been arrested twice - when he was picked up in a nightclub by Mr McNee on Karangahape Rd.

Edwards said he agreed to perform a solo sex act at Mr McNee's flat for money, but that Mr McNee later began touching him, causing him to lash out. The trial judge was not convinced Mr McNee had gone as far as Edwards said, and believed Mr McNee was hit up to 40 times.

Edwards did nothing to help Mr McNee, who perhaps could still have been saved, and instead he showered and took clothes, alcohol, Mr McNee's wallet and his sports car.

Over the next few days, he drove around in the car and bragged he had killed someone.

Previously at the Court of Appeal, Edwards' lawyer Roy Wade quoted precedence of two other young men who had killed older men in similar circumstances, and received terms of three and four years respectively.

Edwards' sentence was not consistent, said Mr Wade, and his client should have been given credit for offering to plead guilty to manslaughter. However, the Court of Appeal said the trial judge was fully justified in deciding that Edwards' later expressions of remorse were contrived.

The Court of Appeal said the plea offer in itself was not enough and he should have put forward his account of what happened.

Edwards' offer to plead guilty to manslaughter never included his account.

Even his evidence given at the trial was considered only reasonably likely to be true, not probably true.

In the circumstances, the trial judge had been right not to reduce his sentence, the court said.

It said it would not support accepting the submission from Edwards' lawyer that the number of blows struck was not an aggravating feature that therefore justified a much heavier sentence.

- NZPA