A Mongrel Mob member who killed his baby daughter – then used a prison kitchen-issued knife to fatally stab a fellow inmate because he was tired of “mean people” calling him a “kid killer” – will stay incarcerated for at least 17 more years.
Waikato resident Donovan Michael Duff, who turns 49 next week, returned to the High Court at Auckland today for sentencing.
But there was little debate around what sentence Justice Grant Powell should impose.
Because it was Duff’s second murder conviction, he faced a life sentence with a minimum term of imprisonment of at least 17 years unless the judge deemed such a sentence to be manifestly unjust. Duff’s lawyers agreed it wouldn’t be so.
Duff was previously handed a life sentence with a 17-year minimum non-parole period out of the High Court at Rotorua in October 2018 for the beating death two-and-a-half years earlier of his 9-month-old daughter, Maija.
Today’s sentencing sets the clock back on his non-parole periods, Justice Powell said, explaining that Duff will be 65 years old and will have served 23 years and eight months total before he can start asking the Parole Board for release.
The judge noted that the defendant continues to show no remorse and could present “nothing else of an even remotely mitigating nature aside from your guilty plea”.
Murder victim Brian Kenneth George died at Auckland South Corrections Facility in Wiri on the morning of December 21, 2023, within minutes of suffering six stab wounds with a large chef’s knife that Duff – a vegetarian cook at the facility – had recently signed out.
The knife, which had a 20cm blade, had punctured George’s heart and the tip of his lung.
Another inmate suffered a single stab wound to the abdomen so deep it almost went completely through his body. Justice Powell described today the man’s terror as “he could see his bowels spilling out from his abdomen”.
That victim required emergency surgery but survived.
The killing was caught on CCTV and staff at the privately-operated prison immediately responded.
Duff declined to speak to authorities about the incident, but he was less guarded the following day during a phone call from prison to his partner.
“That c*** gets to call me a kid killer and f***ing get away with it,” he told his partner, adding that it was especially galling when other child abusers got on his case.
“I’ll f*** any c*** that’s f***ing call me that ...
“I’ve been f***ing hearing this shit, hearing this shit that’s f***ing coming out of mean people’s f***ing mouths but I can’t quite f***ing pinpoint who it was actually coming from. And then when I see the words come out of this c***’s mouth, I just seen red.”
According to the agreed summary of facts, Duff had reported for duty in the kitchen – where about 40 prisoners worked, including the two victims – and signed out the knife at 10.55am.
George and convicted drug dealer Po-Chen Chien were sitting on plastic milk crates in a loading bay, waiting for a prison officer to open external doors so they could transfer food between fridges.
Duff briefly approached the entry to the same area at 11.20am before turning around and walking back to the main kitchen. When he returned one minute later, he went directly to Chien and stabbed him once.
“The defendant remained in front of Mr Chien and stood in a confrontational stance with the knife still in his right hand,” the agreed summary of facts states.
Duff then turned around and appeared as if he was about to leave before changing his mind. He instead approached George and inflicted the six stab wounds.
“Mr George was still sitting on the milk crate, and the first stab was to his lower left abdomen,” court documents state.
“Mr George put his arm around his stomach and attempted to move backwards to get away from the defendant, however, he was unable to get away as there were crates both behind him and to his right and the defendant was blocking the only exit.
“The defendant then immediately stabbed him to the abdomen again. Mr George tried to block the defendant and curl inwards to protect his torso. The defendant used his left hand to push Mr George’s head back and stabbed him a further four times, including to the chest, while Mr George attempted to block the attack with his hands.”
The defendant, who then placed the knife in his pants pocket as he returned to the kitchen, was described by authorities as having “acted calmly but deliberately” throughout the attack.
George activated an emergency button on the loading bay wall, yelling out, “Help! Help!”
Staff nurses raced to help George and administered CPR, but he was pronounced dead at 11.42am.
In a victim impact statement read aloud in court today, George’s mother says she and her daughter remain haunted and traumatised by what happened.
“I can’t understand how an inmate who murdered another person was allowed to sign out a large knife,” she said, adding that “the lack of supervision ... was a factor that led to my son’s murder”.
George had been set for release in just three weeks when he was killed, explained his mother, who lives in Australia.
“We were all excited about Brian’s release and all looked forward to celebrating together,” she said. “All I have now are recurring nightmares about how my son spent the last minute of his life.
“...It was all so cruel how he died.”
Justice Powell later emphasised that the victims’ status as inmates did not “in any way reduce the seriousness of what occurred”. They, too, were part of the community, he said.
“It’s important for our community ... that all prisoners are able to serve their sentences safely,” he said, acknowledging the family’s grief.
The judge noted today that Duff had 166 previous convictions, including the murder of his daughter.
Defence lawyer Shane Tait described Duff as a “sad example of somebody who’s spent the totality of their adult life incarcerated in the prison system”.
His client was raised in Palmerston North and Tūrangi by his grandparents due to his own mother’s incarceration, Tait said. He grew up among Mongrel Mob members and left school at a young age after truancy, glue sniffing and drug taking, the lawyer added.
He said his client’s first term of imprisonment was at age 16, and since then he has only spent about four years outside of prison.
“He sees that [four-year stretch] as one of the most better achievements of his life,” Tait said.
Tait said his client continues to have trouble “dealing with acceptance” of his first murder conviction, during which methamphetamine use was at play.
Duff insisted during his Rotorua trial that he didn’t know how the baby received the injuries. But prosecutors said he was the only caregiver at home with the baby when she suffered injuries so severe they were compared to being kicked in the head by a horse.
During Duff’s previous sentencing, Justice Mathew Downs outlined his long history of violence, which included breaking his former partner’s pelvis during a hammer attack, presenting a firearm at a law enforcement officer, aggravated robbery and other assault and wounding convictions.
A detailed list wasn’t provided at today’s hearing beyond the previous child murder. But Justice Powell noted that Duff continues to be assessed as a high risk of reoffending and hurting others.
The judge agreed with Crown prosecutor Chris Howard that the killing had been premeditated and that the victims were vulnerable because of their prisoner status and because of the “sudden and unprovoked nature of the attack”.
A new 17-year minimum sentence, the judge concluded, was “entirely appropriate and necessary”.
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.
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