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
Angelina Jolie says although she appreciates being an artist, she would prefer for her legacy to be “a good mother” and to be known for her “belief in equality and human rights”.
The Oscar-winning actress stars as Maria Callas in the new Pablo Larrain film about the opera singer’s life.
Pic: StudioCanal
She has called Maria “the hardest” and “most challenging” role she has had in her career and put months of preparation into immersing herself into the world of opera.
Jolie, who recently reached a divorce settlement with actor Brad Pitt, told Sky News: “To be very candid, it was the therapy I didn’t realise I needed. I had no idea how much I was holding in and not letting out.
“So, the challenge wasn’t the technical [side of opera], it was an emotional experience to find my voice, to be in my body, to express. You have to give every single part of yourself.”
The biopic combines the voice of the Maleficent actress with recordings of Maria Callas.
Jolie believes it “would be a crime to not have [Callas’] voice through this because, in many ways, she is very present in this film”.
Who was Maria Callas?
Born in New York in 1923, Maria Callas was the daughter of Greek immigrants who moved back to Athens at the age of 13 with her mother and sister.
After enrolling at the Athens Conservatory, she made her professional debut at 17 and went on to become one of the most famous faces of opera, travelling around the world and performing at Covent Garden in London, The Met in New York and La Scala in Milan.
Callas’s final operatic performance took place at Covent Garden in 1965 when she was 41 but she continued to work conducting master classes at Juilliard School, doing concert tours and starring in the 1969 film Medea.
Written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, Maria focuses on the artist’s final years in the 1970s when she moved to Paris and disappeared from public view.
She died on 16 September 1977 at the age of 53.
Pic: StudioCanal
Jolie on changing motivations as an actor
Maria follows the life of an artist fully consumed by the art she creates and even remarks that “happiness never developed a beautiful melody”.
Reflecting on her own life in the spotlight, Jolie said she noticed her own career motivations change over the years.
“There’s this kind of study of being human that we do when we create, and we communicate with an audience because our work is not in isolation – it’s a connection.
“I think when I was younger, I had different questions about being human and different feelings and now as I’ve gotten older, I understand some things and now I have different questions.
“It’s a matter of life, right? And so maybe that’s interesting that this now is a character really contemplating death and really contemplating the toll of certain things in life that I, of course, couldn’t have understood in my 20s”.
Jolie at the New York Film Festival in September with three of her children (L-R) Pax, Zahara and Maddox. Pic: AP
A family affair
Two of Jolie’s children, Maddox and Pax, took on production assistant roles during the filming of Maria and witnessed their mother perform opera for the first time in public.
She says the film allowed them to create new experiences together and for her children to see her approach to playing a difficult role.
“Everyone in my home, we all give each other space to be who we are and we’re all different.
“I’m the mom, but I’m also an artist and a person and so my family has been very kind and gives me their understanding. They make fun of me, and they support me and just as you’d hope it would be.”
She adds: “When you play somebody who is dealing with so much pain, it’s very important to come home to some kindness.”
Maria is in cinemas now.
Tom Holland’s dad has confirmed his son’s engagement to Zendaya – revealing how the 28-year-old meticulously planned the proposal.
Zendaya, also 28, sparked engagement rumours when she attended last Sunday’s Golden Globes wearing a sparkling diamond on her ring finger.
Neither star has publicly addressed the rumours but Tom’s comedian father, Dominic Holland, has now confirmed the pair are set to wed.
He wrote in a post on his Patreon account: “Tom, as you know by now was very incredibly well prepared. He had purchased a ring.
“He had spoken with her father and gained permission to propose to his daughter.”
“Tom had everything planned out… When, where, how, what to say, what to wear,” he added.
Zendaya arrived at the Golden Globes with a noticeable piece of new jewellery. Pic: Invision/AP
Dominic also noted that while most men worry about being able to afford an engagement ring, he suspects his actor son was “more concerned with the stone, its size and clarity, its housing, which jeweller”.
Tom and Zendaya met on the set of Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2016, when they played the titular hero and his love interest MJ, respectively. Their romance was confirmed in 2021.
In his post, Tom’s father admitted fears over whether being in the spotlight could put a strain on the couple’s relationship.
He wrote: “I do fret that their combined stardom will amplify their spotlight and the commensurate demands on them and yet they continually confound me by handling everything with aplomb.”
“And even though show business is a messy place for relationships and particularly so for famous couples as they crash and burn in public and are too numerous to mention […] yet somehow right at the same time, I am completely confident they will make a successful union.”
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Zendaya rose to fame after landing a role in Disney sitcom Shake It Up, and became a household name after starring in Euphoria.
Holland – who has starred in three Spider-Man films opposite his now-fiancée – made his stage debut in Billy Elliot the Musical in 2008.
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