A New Zealand man was sentenced yesterday to 24 years in prison for committing the first murder on Norfolk Island since the tiny South Pacific outpost was settled by descendants of the HMS Bounty mutineers 151 years ago.
In a Sydney court hearing televised live to the island's court house 1,900km away, former chef Glenn McNeill, 29, was sentenced to 24 years in prison, with a minimum of 18 years to be served behind bars, for the brutal murder of 28-year-old hotel manager Janelle Patton in 2002.
SHOCKED
The discovery of Patton's battered body shocked the island's tight-knit population of 1,600 and triggered a four-year police investigation that finally ended with McNeill's arrest on DNA evidence in New Zealand last year.
McNeill denied the murder but was convicted by a Norfolk Island Supreme Court jury in March.
Australian Federal Court judge Mark Weinberg, who was appointed the island's chief justice to hear the case, passed sentence yesterday.
He said McNeill could be released after 18 years if he agreed not to commit a criminal offense for another six years and paid a US$4,400 bond.
NO JAIL
With no jail on the island, an Australian territory, McNeill will serve his sentence in an Australian prison.
McNeill's lawyer, John Brown, described the sentence as "a disappointment," and foreshadowed appeals against both the conviction and severity of the punishment.
Norfolk Island was settled in 1856 by 194 descendants of the HMS Bounty mutineers after Pitcairn Island, their first sanctuary, grew too crowded.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS