A young woman who was imprisoned earlier this year after a jury found her guilty of contributing to the death of 18-year-old Connor Boyd outside an Auckland Central nightclub has lost a third bid for name suppression.
But she cannot yet be named while her lawyers consider whether to pull stumps on the years-long battle or to try one more appeal, this time with the Supreme Court.
In a 45-page decision released today, the Court of Appeal also rejected her bid for a reduced prison sentence.
The woman and her then-boyfriend were also both 18 years old when they were charged with manslaughter in April 2022, just days after Boyd was taken off life support.
The woman’s ex-boyfriend, who was also found guilty at trial, has not sought continued name suppression. However, the courts have previously ruled that he also cannot yet be named because doing so might lead to the identification of the female defendant.
During their trial last October, prosecutors said it was nothing more than “pointless teen drama” that prompted both defendants to grab Boyd’s arm and drive off as he stood beside their SUV outside a Britomart nightclub. He jumped onto the runnerboard of the vehicle to avoid being dragged but fell into the street a short distance later, suffering a catastrophic head injury as a result.
The male defendant, who was driving, claimed he feared for his and his passengers’ safety after Boyd voiced a threat through the open window and allegedly started throwing punches. The female defendant, meanwhile, testified that she never grabbed Boyd’s arm at all and was in shock when her co-defendant did so.
But jurors, who repeatedly watched horrific CCTV footage of the tumble, didn’t buy the defence and neither did the sentencing judge.
The incident occurred after a night of drinking and “aggressive bullying”, Justice Ian Gault noted during the duo’s sentencing hearing in February.
“He was outnumbered by you and your friends and did not demonstrate any physical aggression towards you,” Gault told the female defendant. “Were it not for your animus to Mr Boyd through that night, coupled with your assistance to [the male defendant] in the vehicle, Mr Boyd’s death would not have resulted.”
He ordered a sentence of two years and two months’ imprisonment for the female defendant and two-and-half years for the male defendant. Both had sought home detention based in part on their youth.
In April, two months after the sentencing, defence lawyer Emma Priest appeared before the Court of Appeal in Wellington to contest the prison term and rejection of the female defendant’s bid for permanent name suppression.
The defendant had received a favourable decision from the Court of Appeal in the past.
In June 2022, while still awaiting trial, the High Court ordered suppression to lapse. The female defendant had argued, then unsuccessfully, that online vitriol and threats as a result of Boyd’s death would lead to “extreme hardship” if she was to be identified in the media.
But two months later, the Court of Appeal overturned the decision, allowing suppression to remain in place until the start of the trial. The decision, however, was based on their fair-trial rights rather than extreme hardship.
“The concerning issue in the present case flows from the creation of the online petition seeking to persuade the Crown to charge the appellant and G with murder rather than manslaughter, and to seek ‘crowd funding’ to assist Mr Boyd’s family,” the appellate court said at the time. “We also regard with concern the fact that, a few days before the present appeal was heard, the person who created the petition posted further material on Instagram that included a photograph of the appellant...
“We agree with the Judge that the court is not the arbiter of social media standards. However, the court is the arbiter of measures necessary to guard against the erosion of fair trial rights. We see the creation of the online petition as being an attempt to directly influence the criminal justice process.”
Justice Gault allowed the couple to keep suppression through the duration of their trial, but in a hearing days after their conviction rejected the woman’s bid for permanent name suppression during which her lawyers made a similar “extreme hardship” argument based on her youth and social media posts. The names continued to be kept secret, however, to preserve her right to appeal.
This time, the defendant’s luck with the Court of Appeal had run out.
“...We do not consider any likely social media commentary to be of such a level that it will compromise [her] clear potential for rehabilitation,” the justices wrote in today’s decision.
“While Ms Priest is correct to highlight [her] lesser role in the index offending because she was not the driver, we do not agree that her culpability is low,” the decision also noted. “As the [sentencing] Judge observed, but for [her] animus towards Mr Boyd and her own actions, Mr Boyd would not have been killed.
“Furthermore, there are other relevant factors which further weigh in favour of open justice. These include the strong opposition to [her] name suppression conveyed by Mr Boyd’s family and the fact that if [her] name were suppressed, it is difficult to see how [her co-defendant’s] name would also avoid suppression. For all these reasons, we would have declined to grant [her] name suppression in any event.”
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Francis Cooke said he would have allowed the woman’s prison sentence to be commuted to 12 months’ home detention and 12 months’ post-detention conditions. He did not voice opposition to the suppression decision.
Under the law, the inmate and her lawyers have 20 working days to decide if they will 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.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated lawyer Emma Priest attended the Court of Appeal hearing via audio-video feed. She appeared in person.