The Murder Of Grace Millane: ‘Heinous’ rough sex defence explored five years on from British backpacker’s killing in New Zealand
On 2 December 2018, British backpacker Grace Millane should have been celebrating her 22nd birthday during the trip of a lifetime in New Zealand.
Thousands of miles from her home in Essex, the messages and requests for video calls from friends and family kept pinging through to her phone. But they were never answered.
Her disappearance made headlines around the world. Grace had been murdered by Jesse Kempson, a 26-year-old man she met through Tinder. He strangled her in a hotel room in Auckland, calmly left in the morning to purchase a suitcase, and later buried her body in an area of bushland in the Waitakere Ranges.
Jesse Kempson initially lied to police – but CCTV showed the inaccuracies in his story
When CCTV contradicted his story – that they enjoyed a short date before going their separate ways – he admitted she had died while with him, but claimed a case of consensual “rough sex” gone badly wrong.
Kempson’s defence meant Grace’s parents David and Gillian, grieving and in a strange country, listened in court to what felt like blame and shaming of their daughter; details of her sex life raked over, never able to tell her own story. Following the trial, it emerged Kempson had a record of violence against women and had raped another British tourist eight months before he murdered Grace.
Almost five years on, a new documentary, The Murder Of Grace Millane, takes a look back at the night of her death and Kempson’s subsequent trial, focusing on his use of the defence and the reaction from some on social media that Grace was in some way at fault for going back to a hotel room with a man she had met that day.
Detective Inspector Scott Beard pictured with Grace Millane’s parents David and Gillian outside Auckland High Court
“Essentially the rough sex defence re-victimises that victim and their families – in a murder case, their families who are sitting in court,” Detective Inspector Scott Beard, the lead investigator on the case, tells Sky News. “The victim isn’t there to answer.”
The documentary has been made by filmmaker Helena Coan, featuring DI Beard and with the blessing of Grace’s family. She says Kempson’s defence, arguing that Grace had asked to be choked during sex, was one of the main reasons she wanted to tell the young woman’s story.
“I’ve been in that position and probably every woman in the history of the world has been in that position, on a new date with someone that you don’t really know,” she says. “We’re excited to be there.” The CCTV footage shows a “young girl having fun in a new country”, she adds. “She was just a normal young woman who absolutely didn’t deserve what was about to happen to her.”
Grace, in the last image of her taken alive, stands with Kempson in the hours before he murdered her
Coan’s film lets the evidence speak for itself. There is contradictory CCTV, footage of Kempson rifling through Grace’s bag when she left the table during her date, his internet search history for porn in the hours after Grace’s death, as well as for “Waitakere ranges” – the location where he would later bury her body. He also took photos of her. And there was no call to emergency services, no attempt to get help.
Jurors saw through Kempson’s account and he was ultimately found guilty, sentenced to a minimum of 17 years in prison. But campaigners say the rough sex defence in some cases can lead to reduced sentencing.
“People don’t really understand the prevalence of the rough sex defence,” says Coan. “Men are getting away with the most heinous, manipulative, planned, pre-meditated crimes. And they are saying, basically, ‘she asked for it’.
“It’s scary to see how lawyers use this defence and how juries still buy into this idea, that a woman can consent to being strangled to death.”
As it was said in court, she points out, it takes five to 10 minutes to kill someone by strangulation. “That’s not pleasure. That’s murder.”
Read more:
The final hours of Grace Millane’s life
Mother tells killer he has ‘ripped a hole’ in her heart
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Grace Millane’s murderer in police interview
In England and Wales, following much campaigning, it was announced in 2020 that “rough sex” legally should not be considered a defence to violent crime, that a person “cannot consent to actual bodily harm or to other more serious injury or, by extension, to their own death”.
Before this, the We Can’t Consent To This campaign group, which was set up following another woman’s killing, said the use of the defence had increased tenfold since 2000. It features the stories of dozens of women and girls on its website.
Following Kempson’s conviction in 2019, Susan Edwards, a barrister and law professor who spent years campaigning for a change in legislation in the UK, told Sky News she believed the “alarming” increase in the use of the defence was down to “a narrative in society of pornography in the media and much more generally” which meant jurors “might be more persuaded to accept that women are more consenting to this type of dreadful behaviour”.
Coan says she wants to see changes in the conversation generally, “outside of the courtroom – about women and violence against women and domestic violence and victim blaming – that then makes these defences harder to use because juries don’t buy into them as much”.
Her film features comments made about Grace on social media as news of her disappearance and death made headlines. She says it was “horrifying” to see the negative remarks. “It’s always scared me how quickly people want to blame victims of violence for the violence that’s committed against them. I want people to hear [the evidence] and then go, there is no way she could have consented to this.”
Coan says she hopes more than anything that the film will help more men understand the “silent burden” of the fear of violence that women carry.
“That’s really where things start to change, is with good men calling out other men. I want men to watch this film and understand that this feeling that something like this could happen is with every single woman, all the time. All the way through their lives. I want men to watch this and realise the fear that we carry and how heavy that is, and how men can really help to solve that.”
Watch The Murder of Grace Millane on Sky Documentaries and NOW from 22 October
Entertainment
‘Ketamine Queen’ Jasveen Sangha pleads guilty to supplying fatal dose that killed Friends star Matthew Perry
A woman known as the “Ketamine Queen” has officially pleaded guilty to selling Friends star Matthew Perry the drug that killed him.
Jasveen Sangha initially denied the charges but agreed to change her plea in a signed statement in August, just a few weeks before she had been due to stand trial.
The 42-year-old , a dual citizen of the US and the UK, has now appeared in a federal court in Los Angeles to plead guilty to five charges, including supplying the ketamine that led to Perry‘s death.
She faces up to 65 years in prison after admitting one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death.
Prosecutors agreed to drop three other counts related to the distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of methamphetamine that was unrelated to the Perry case.
In a brief statement when the plea deal was announced, her lawyer Mark Geragos said she was “taking responsibility for her actions”.
The judge is not bound to follow any terms of the plea agreement, but prosecutors have said they will ask for less than the maximum possible sentence.
Perry died aged 54 in October 2023. He had struggled with addiction for years, but released a memoir a year before his death during a period of being clean.
He had been using ketamine through his regular doctor as a legal, but off-label, treatment for depression, but in the weeks before his death had also started to seek more of the drug illegally.
Perry bought large amounts of ketamine from Sangha, including 25 vials for $6,000 (£4,458) in cash four days before his death, prosecutors said.
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What Perry’s death says about Hollywood
Sangha, described by prosecutors as the “Ketamine Queen of North Hollywood”, is now the fifth and final person to plead guilty to charges connected to the supply of drugs to the Friends star.
The actor’s live-in assistant Kenneth Iwamasa, an acquaintance Erik Fleming, and a physician, Mark Chavez, all agreed to plead guilty when the charges were announced in August 2024.
Another doctor, Salvador Plasencia, initially pleaded not guilty and had been due to face trial alongside Sangha, but changed his plea in July.
Sangha and Plasencia had been the primary targets of the investigation.
The three other defendants: Chavez, Iwamasa and Fleming pleaded guilty in exchange for their co-operation, which included statements implicating Sangha and Plasencia.
Perry had bought ketamine from Sangha after he was led to her by Fleming, prosecutors said.
On the day of Perry’s death, Sangha told Fleming they should delete all the messages they had sent each other, according to Sangha’s indictment.
Sangha is due to be sentenced on 10 December.
The other four defendants are also still awaiting sentencing.
Perry was one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing in Friends – which ran on NBC between 1994 and 2004.
He starred alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for all 10 seasons of the show.
The Friends stars were among around 20 mourners who attended his funeral in November 2023, according to TMZ.
Before he died alone in his jacuzzi, Matthew Perry had received three injections of ketamine in the space of just six hours. “Shoot me up with a big one,” he told his personal assistant, ahead of the final, fatal dose.
According to court documents, in the period leading up to 28 October 2023, Kenneth Iwamasa was illegally administering Perry with between six and eight shots of the drug, an anaesthetic that can have hallucinogenic effects, each day.
A live-in assistant, he admitted to finding the actor unconscious at his Pacific Palisades home on at least two occasions in the weeks prior.
The hit that ultimately killed the Friends star was supplied by Jasveen Sangha, also known as the “Ketamine Queen” – a dealer who apparently only dealt “with high-end and celebs”. She has agreed to plead guilty to five charges and will appear in court later today.
Her charges, along with others filed against Iwamasa and others over the supply of ketamine to Perry, exposed part of Hollywood’s underground drug network – and put the spotlight on the world of celebrity, money and power.
Jasveen Sangha was known as the ‘Ketamine Queen’. Pic: Jojo Korsh/BFA.com/Shutterstock
‘Yes men’ with terrible consequences
Perry’s death was met with both utter shock and a sad sense of the inevitable. The world knew him best as Chandler Bing, the comic heartbeat of Friends. But behind the jokes and the sarcasm, he was deeply troubled.
“It almost felt like we’d been mourning Matthew for a long time because his battle with that disease was a really hard one for him to fight,” is how his former co-star Jennifer Aniston described his addiction in a recent interview. “As hard as it was for all of us and for the fans, there’s a part of me that thinks this is better… I’m glad he’s out of that pain.”
The actor was an addict, and vulnerable – but also a huge star, worth millions.
Kenneth Iwamasa was Matthew Perry’s live-in assistant. Pic: APEX / The Mega Agency
Iwamasa was administering the injections, ultimately playing God – but to him, the power most likely lay with his famous boss. His actions may seem inexcusable, but did he feel he had a choice?
“I think it was a situation that increasingly got more and more out of control,” says Bonnie Low-Kramen, a former celebrity assistant turned trainer, and author of Be The Ultimate Assistant.
Photos: Photos: Jojo Korsh/BFA.com/Shutterstock/ APEX/The Mega Agency/ AP/ DoJ/ AP
Those who do the job, especially in Los Angeles, can be put under an enormous amount of pressure, she says, “tasked with doing things many of us wouldn’t imagine carrying out for our employers. It is a job which comes with an inherent power imbalance”.
Which means it can be incredibly hard to say no.
“When people are rich and famous, they often have people around them who won’t say no,” she says. “And assistants are in the yes business anyway.
“We’re in the business of figuring out, ‘well, let’s solve the problem…’. When money is no object, there are new rules that apply in that situation and that can be really hard to handle.”
Iwamasa is not the first celebrity assistant asked to administer or pick up illegal drugs, she says, and Perry is not the first star to die after taking drugs.
Money Iwamasa paid for ketamine. Pic Central District of California Prosecutor’s Office
Ms Low-Kramen highlights the deaths of Janis Joplin, Prince and John Belushi as just a few other examples.
“Unfortunately, there are so many examples of this tragic end, where the abuse of drugs gets to a point where they’ve handled it for a really long time, and then the day comes when it can’t be handled anymore.”
For those struggling with addiction, being surrounded by “yes men” can have terrible consequences, says Garrett Braukman, an addiction treatment executive in Hollywood.
“Treatment is difficult for people when they have yes men. They have a lot of people that are going to tell them you can get whatever you want, you can get drugs, you can get alcohol, you could do whatever, and no one is willing to really look at that from the perspective of how dangerous that is.”
Read more:
Obituary: The one who made everyone laugh
Matthew Perry: A life in pictures
Material prosecutors said was taken from Sangha’s ‘stash house’. Pic: Central District of California Prosecutor’s Office
Mr Braukman says addiction can go hand in hand with fame and that a “high” percentage of his patients work in the entertainment industry.
“I don’t know how I would be able to stay clean and sober if I go to my grandma’s house and there’s 20 guys outside of my grandma’s house taking pictures of me walking in. You become an animal to a degree that people are watching.”
Dr Salvador Plasencia appeared in court in July. Pic: Reuters/Mike Blake
Rise in use of ketamine
The use of ketamine recreationally has been on the rise in recent years, in the UK as well as the US. In England, some 3,609 people started treatment for problems with the drug in the year 2023-2024 – more than eight times the number in 2014-2015, when 426 sought help, according to government statistics.
In January, drag queen The Vivienne was found dead in the bath at their home in Cheshire, aged 32. The star’s family later told how the performer had died “from the effects of ketamine use causing a cardiac arrest”.
Ketamine is usually taken recreationally as a crushed powder, but also sometimes injected or swallowed – making people feel detached and dreamlike. It can also cause severe bladder and kidney problems.
The Vivienne died after taking ketamine in January 2025. Pic: PA
Perry’s struggles with alcohol and other drugs, before ketamine, were long running and well documented, starting with drinking as a teenager before moving on to painkilling prescription drugs Vicodin and OxyContin, and tranquilliser Xanax.
“I have spent upward of $7m (£5.8m) trying to get sober,” he wrote in his memoir, released when he was clean, just a year before his death.
While accepting the almost unsurpassable legacy of the hit show that made him a star, he said he hoped his support for fellow addicts would be the achievement he was best remembered for.
“When I die, I don’t want Friends to be the first thing that’s mentioned – I want helping others to be the first thing that’s mentioned and I’m going to live the rest of my life proving that.”
He only lived for another year.
Perry (centre) with his Friends co-stars David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow, Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston and Matt LeBlanc at the Emmys in 2002. Pic: Reuters
Illegal use v therapy
Before he died, Perry had been undergoing legal ketamine infusion therapy to treat depression and anxiety. The drug can be used as a treatment in clinical settings in the US, and some specialist and private centres in the UK – although there are concerns from some medics here about its use even in those settings.
According to a postmortem report, the actor had reportedly been clean for 19 months before he started obtaining the drug illegally as well.
It was not the supervised doses that killed him, but the idea of an addict taking the drug to help their problems might still sound shocking.
Pic: Reuters
In California, ketamine drips are legally used as pain relief, to treat mood disorders and to help with addiction. Other celebrities and notable figures – including Chrissy Teigen, Elon Musk and Sharon Osbourne – have all shared details of ketamine therapy and how it helped them.
Dr Austin Harris, owner and medical director at NeuroRelief Ketamine Infusion Therapy, says historically the drug is “extremely safe” when used in the right conditions, and swears by its effectiveness.
At the clinic in California, he explained to Sky News how it can help people with mood disorders and chronic pain, as well as those in recovery from drug or alcohol abuse.
“Which a lot of people who don’t really understand this at a scientific level might think is an oxymoron,” he says. “But actually, it’s profoundly beneficial – done properly – in resetting both neurologic and psychological patterns for substance abuse.”
Ketamine treatment at NeuroRelief Ketamine Infusion Therapy in LA
Ketamine infusion “restarts in our brain what should already be there”, he says, in terms of “the neurologic road workers, to be able to then direct, to build new patterns and actual new nerve pathways”.
One patient having therapy at the clinic also spoke to us, saying he had abused alcohol and marijuana, and occasionally opiate painkillers, for many years.
“I’ve had enough experience and decades of being addicted to drugs and alcohol and traumas and trying different things,” he said. “When I came out of that infusion I was like, wait a minute. I didn’t have the shakes. I didn’t have the cravings.”
Read more:
Parties and busted doors: Living next to ‘Ketamine Queen’
The drug addiction leaving users in chronic pain
Dr Harris emphasises the need for administration by a professional in a clinical setting. “Matthew Perry was being illegally sold ketamine on the black market. The fact that a doctor happened to be one of several people that was illegally selling it to him should not be confused with the appropriate legal utilisation of ketamine.”
The actor was vulnerable, Dr Harris continues. “It’s absolutely abominable… You have someone with serious addiction problems, lifelong. And sadly, I think that he was really taken advantage of.”
The drugs stash
As well as Sangha and Iwamasa, the others charged over Perry’s death are Erik Fleming, an associate of Perry’s who was in contact with Sangha, Dr Mark Chavez, a physician, and Dr Salvador Plasencia, who also supplied ketamine illegally to Perry.
“I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Dr Plasencia said in a text exchange between him and Chavez.
Dr Mark Chavez, a physician from San Diego, pleaded guilty in court last year. Pic: AP/ Damian Dovargan
After Perry died, Sangha desperately sought to cover her involvement. “Delete all our messages,” she instructed Fleming in a message on Signal.
In March 2024, law enforcement searched Sangha’s home and found 1.7kg of pressed pills containing methamphetamine, 79 vials of liquid ketamine, MDMA (ecstasy) tablets, counterfeit Xanax pills, baggies containing powdered ketamine and cocaine, and other drug-trafficking items such as a gold money counting machine, a scale, a wireless signal and hidden camera detector, drug packaging materials, and $5,723 in cash, according to her plea agreement.
Sangha was happy to supply to Hollywood’s rich and famous – and not an anomaly.
Several books have been written by Tinseltown dealers, and only a few months ago, the Sean “Diddy” Combs trial heard from a former personal assistant to the hip-hop mogul who testified about meeting sellers for his boss.
Now, as she becomes the last defendant to admit her role in Perry’s death, the Ketamine Queen’s guilty plea brings to a close the criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.
But in a world where money talks, where fame and addiction or mental health issues often go hand-in-hand, it is unlikely to be the last.
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