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.”
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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
“You either hold a weapon or you hold a guitar,” says Raji El-Jaru, Gaza’s biggest rockstar.
Months before war broke out last year, hundreds of people packed into a concert hall to hear his band perform their distinct blend of pounding guitar riffs and impassioned lyrics.
“We’ll scream our pain; can you hear the call?” he sang to the rapt crowd. “Knock, knock, are you listening at all?”
Not long after that gig, Israeli airstrikes rained on Gaza City, tearing down buildings and displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
Focused on survival rather than music, the five members of Osprey V – believed to be Gaza’s first rock band – went from dreaming of gigging in Europe to wondering if they would ever play together again.
Formed back in 2015, the group are all self-taught and cite Metallica and Linkin Park among their influences. Raji, 32, explains that he has always seen rock music as the obvious way to resist oppression. “We are the voice of the voiceless, spreading love instead of hatred and violence.”
Live from Kyiv: Volodomyr aka Lostlojic. Pic: Oleksandra Poparova
“It’s a matter of time now,” Volodymyr says, talking about when his name will be called to join Ukraine’s armed forces.
A DJ who goes by the moniker Lostlojic, before the full-scale invasion in 2022 he was flying around Europe playing his brand of electronic music but now he’s back in Kyiv, his hometown, performing to raise money for his friends on the frontline.
In the early days after the invasion there was discussion about whether club nights should continue, says 35-year-old Volodymyr, but people needed a break from thinking about war – not least the soldiers on leave from the battlefield.
“Many of my friends who are musicians are in the armed forces. They have no time to do their favourite thing. Once every few months they create some tracks, send them to me, and I play them out.”
Last weekend there was a day to celebrate the Ukrainian language, and Volodymyr incorporated samples of Ukrainian speech into his songs to mark it – an assertion of an identity that is under threat.
“Everything is about politics, you can’t be an artist without it.”
Ruth Daniel spoke about the role of music in conflict zones at Womex. Pic: Jacob Crawfurd
“One of the things that music can do is unify people,” says Ruth Daniel. “It’s a way to give people a space to share what they’re going through.”
She is head of In Place Of War, an organisation that helps foster music and creativity in conflict zones. When bombs are falling all around you, she believes, music can act as a form of escapism and creative resistance.
Speaking to Sky News from the recent WOMEX (Worldwide Music Expo) conference in Manchester, she described how smartphones and social media make it easier than ever for those in conflict zones to write tracks and find an audience.
“I’ve seen people making music studios on the edge of checkpoints, making their own instruments, doing hip hop on street corners and making music with car sound systems.”
Gigs too, can be held anywhere, she says, giving an example of a club night she went to in the Palestinian West Bank city of Ramallah.
“It was at a house – they basically turned the kitchen into a club. I remember leaving and there were lines and lines of police and army [soldiers] pointing guns.
“For me, the best music comes out of situations of difficulty. It’s not just art for art’s sake, it’s art with purpose and meaning.”
One of Mo Aziz’s band members was recently killed in Sudan. Pic: Livv Edwards
Mo Aziz once performed to tens of thousands of people in stadiums across Sudan as part of the popular group Igd al-Jalad. But the group’s music criticised the then-government and they were banned from performing amid a crackdown on expression.
He came to the UK as a refugee in 2017, and this year released an album calling for peace in his homeland and hoping to raise the profile of Sudanese music – traditionally a blend of African and Arabic influences.
Since the struggle for power between the army and a large militia group erupted into armed conflict in April 2023, more than 20,000 people have been killed in Sudan. There are firefights on the streets of Khartoum and a humanitarian crisis.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Mo’s mother and brother fled to Egypt, making a fortnight-long journey to escape the conflict, as the fighting led to millions being displaced.
“I was devastated,” he said. “I lost three friends as a result of the bombing in Khartoum, including one member of Igdal-Jalad.”
This unfolded as Mo was working on his album and master’s degree at Liverpool Hope University.
“I hope to show what’s happening in Sudan as well as uplift Sudanese music and put it on the international scene,” he said. “I will always dedicate my work to peace and human rights.”
Saeed Gadir seeks to tell stories through his music. Pic: Sequoia Ziff
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Meanwhile, British-Sudanese folk singer-songwriter Saeed Gadir described the music scene in Khartoum as a “ghost town”.
“It’s really been decimated, there’s no one there. It’s a huge part of my writing,” says Saeed, who’s known as The Halfway Kid and whose new album Myths In Modern Life talks about growing up in a Sudanese migrant family.
And while he doesn’t see himself as always being explicitly political, his music is nonetheless politicised by the stories he tells and feelings he seeks to share with his audiences, he says.
“Even if you’re in London, you might get an insight into what it might feel like if there’s a coup back home.”
Read more:
Gaza situation ‘disastrous’ – UN
Millions of Sudanese displaced by war now face a new fight
Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson in Sarajevo in 1994. Pic: Reuters
Sometimes there is no safe way to explore music in a dangerous place, sometimes the bombs are falling around you even as amps are plugged in and microphones set up.
That was the case in 1994, before the internet gave musicians the power to appear virtually to their fans. Back then, legendary metal singer Bruce Dickinson and his band Skunkworks were smuggled into Sarajevo during the Bosnian War while the city was under siege. The gig they played instantly became historic.
“I’d never seen devastation like it in a modern city. There wasn’t a single building that wasn’t a burnt-out shell,” Dickinson, best known as the lead singer of Iron Maiden, told the 2017 documentary Scream For Me Sarajevo.
The siege of Sarajevo was the longest in modern history, lasting nearly four years. More than 11,000 people, including over 1,000 children, were killed.
“I went out there and was just, like, how can I ever be as big as their lives need me to be for them?” recalled Dickinson.
“You could have given everything and you just felt like it wasn’t ever gonna be enough.”
Raji El-Jaru and his band have a new video coming out soon. Pic: Mohammed Al Nateel
All over the world, the musical tradition of building community – and resistance – in some of the world’s most dangerous places is thriving, thanks in part to social media and the ability to reach audiences around the world with live streams.
“Especially in places where people can’t get out or people can’t go in,” Ruth says. “And so that becomes the most important way of sharing people’s culture and identities.”
Still unable to return home, Raji has continued his work on Osprey V. A new video, produced in the Gaza Strip, is out soon and he hopes it will be a wakeup call to the West.
“We are normal people just like you,” he says. “We have families, we drink coffee, we wear Adidas. But we are suffering from endless wars.”
Life in between filming the first and second series of The Old Man has been vastly different for Jeff Bridges.
The Oscar-winning actor led the first season of the action thriller at 70, seemingly healthy and ready to take on the world. However, unbeknown to him at the time, he had undiagnosed non-Hodgkin lymphoma and a 9×12 inch tumour in his stomach, which would require intense treatment.
Rather than the often used language of “fighting” the cancer, Bridges described himself as being “in surrender mode” as he not only went through chemotherapy but also contracted COVID-19.
Jeff Bridges returns in The Old Man. Pic: Kurt Iswarienko/FX/Disney+
However, he set himself the goal of walking his daughter down the aisle, which he did in 2021, and has since said his tumour has been reduced to “the size of a marble”.
Now, The Big Lebowski actor has returned to the small screen for the second season of Disney+ show The Old Man, which tells the story of a former CIA operative on the run and also stars Conclave’s John Lithgow and Blink Twice actress Alia Shawkat.
John Lithgow (right) co-stars alongside Bridges. Pic: Kurt Iswarienko/FX/Disney+
Despite a vast career in film, this is Bridges’ first time leading a TV series – a format he saw his father Lloyd Bridges excel in when he was a child.
“With movies, you have a beginning, middle and an end,” he tells Sky News. “You know where you’re going. That’s not the case in the series, it’s exciting.”
The American actor says he makes an effort to instil “joy” and kindness on his sets, crediting his father’s love for the art of acting for why he remains so positive.
“I mean, he taught me all the basics of acting and he, unlike a lot of parents who are in showbiz, wanted all his kids to go into showbusiness. He loved it so much.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Bridges has appeared on screen since he was just six months old and would leave school to join his father on the set of his series.
“The way he approached his work with such joy [was admirable] and that was the main thing I learned from him… Whenever he came on the set, that joy was kind of contagious and everybody would say, hey, this is kind of fun, what we’re doing to get to play, dance, pretend here with all these great folks and we can have a good time.”
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Bridges says he was lucky to work with his father a few times as an adult and that the ability to create a relaxing and fun environment that allowed artists to flourish was something he wanted to replicate in his own work.
On set, he meets with every creative taking part in his films and shows, from costume designers to the production team.
“That’s such an important aspect of my work, getting a perspective from their take… all these things start to come together and they have a cumulative effect on how your character comes off, and they’re thinking of it from a completely different point of view.
“That’s very valuable to me, you know, to hear the history, why the person got that particular piece of clothing and what not.”
Season two of The Old Man is available to stream on Disney+ from 6 November.
Entertainment
Ed Sheeran beats copyright appeal over claim Thinking Out Loud ripped off Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On
An appeals court has upheld a ruling that Ed Sheeran’s hit song Thinking Out Loud did not illegally copy the Marvin Gaye classic, Let’s Get It On.
The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, New York, agreed with a lower-court judge’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Structured Asset Sales (SAS), which owns rights to the 1973 Gaye song that previously belonged to the late co-writer Ed Townsend.
SAS had made the allegations against Sheeran, his record label Warner Music, and music publisher Sony Music Publishing.
Ed Sheeran attended court in New York in 2023 for a hearing on a separate lawsuit about the same track, which he won. Pic: AP
It comes after a separate copyright lawsuit filed by heirs of Townsend over alleged similarities between the tracks. Sheeran won that case in May 2023, following a jury trial.
SAS sued Sheeran in 2018, four years after the release of his number one hit. US District Judge Louis Stanton dismissed the case following the verdict in the heirs’ case last year – concluding the musical elements allegedly copied were too common to merit copyright protection.
The appeals court has now agreed, saying Thinking Out Loud and Let’s Get It On are not similar enough for Sheeran to have infringed on copyright, and protecting the elements could stifle creativity.
SAS owner, investment banker David Pullman, said the company was reviewing all of its options following the decision.
Gaye, who died in 1984, collaborated with Townsend, who died in 2003, to write Let’s Get It On, which topped the Billboard charts in the year it was released. The track has been used in numerous films and adverts, and garnered hundreds of millions of streams and radio plays in the past 50 years.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Sheeran, who is from Suffolk, is one of the most successful modern music stars in the world. Thinking Out Loud, which won a Grammy for song of the year in 2016, is among his biggest hits.
Sky News has contacted representatives for the star for comment on the latest ruling.
After the result in 2023, he spoke outside court, saying he was “unbelievably frustrated baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all”.
He added: “We’ve spent the last eight years talking about two songs with dramatically different lyrics, melodies and four chords which are also different and used by songwriters every day, all over the world.”
The British star, 33, also won a similar copyright case in the UK in 2022 – this one relating to Shape Of You, another of his biggest hits.
During that hearing, he was accused by two lesser-known songwriters of ripping off part of one of their songs for his 2017 track. However, the High Court judge ruled that Sheeran “neither deliberately nor subconsciously” copied a hook from the song.
Following that ruling, Sheeran released a video statement hitting out at “baseless” copyright claims that are “damaging” to the industry.
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