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Guilty plea to Burwood murder
A 29-year-old man has pleaded guilty to the murder of a woman in a stabbing at a Burwood house on July 11, but suppression orders continue to surround the case.
The name of the Kaiapoi farmhand and the woman he has admitted murdering still cannot be published, and those orders will be reconsidered at his sentencing in the High Court at Christchurch on November 22.
The man?s defence counsel Tony Greig told the court: ?The police, on behalf of the victim, have supported the suppression up until now as a protective measure for her three-year-old daughter.?
The suppressions granted today applied only to the names of the man and the victim, rather than a ban on publication of background of details of the case which had been imposed at the man?s first court appearances.
He has undergone a psychiatric examination while he has been in custody since his arrest. Greig told the court at an earlier appearance that the report ?did not advance matters?.
He sought and was granted the leave of the judge for the man to enter the guilty plea to the charge of murder in a District Court, because murder cases can only be handled by the High Court. The case was sent there for the sentencing.
No police summary of facts was read at the hearing, but paperwork at the court indicates the woman died in a stabbing.
The man remains in custody, and the judge has ordered that a pre-sentence report be prepared for the High Court sentencing.
Greig asked for the name suppression orders to be continued, and the police prosecutor Sergeant Anna Lloyd said: ?The police have no applications to make one way or the other.?
Judge Couch said that once a guilty plea had been entered it changed considerations, but he was reluctant to have the issue argued in open court because there could be potentially sensitive matters.
He agreed to Greig?s request to keep the orders in place until they could be decided by the High Court.
A large number of family members and friends were at the court to see the man enter the guilty plea but they declined a request to speak to reporters afterwards.
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