Killer of Wellington woman can't re-open 2012 sentencing

The man who hid for hours in the ceiling of his estranged partner’s house, sneaking out in the middle of the night to murder her, has failed to reopen the length of his non-parole period.

Ernest Smith, is serving at least 17 years of a life jail term for murdering Amanda Dawn Taufale in November 2012, at the home she shared with her two children in Tawa, a northern suburb of Wellington.

Taufale was 33, and had two sons, one aged 15 years, the other an infant. The infant had been sleeping in a cot in his mother’s room the night she was killed there.

The older boy found her body in the morning,

Smith pleaded guilty to murdering her.

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In 2016, Smith lost an appeal against the 17-year minimum he has to serve before he can be considered for parole.

Recently, about four years outside the normal time limits, he asked the Supreme Court to hear another appeal.

In a decision issued on Wednesday, the court refused.

The Supreme Court said Smith had wanted to raise issues of the level of reduction justified for a guilty plea to murder, and whether personal characteristics meant he should have got a greater discount in the sentencing process.

It said the proposed appeal did not raise an issue of principle or public importance that would allow it to hear his case.

It was not convinced there was enough of a link between Smith’s personal characteristics and the murder to raise the issue of Smith getting a greater allowance for personal factors.

The judges said refusing permission for a final appeal would not risk a miscarriage of justice.

Psychiatric reports available to the sentencing judge said Smith had personality factors which may have played a part in the murder, such as a particularly rough childhood, limited intellectual functioning, poor literacy and depression.

But in the end it was his anger and frustration at the end of the relationship and limits on seeing her and their son, that triggered the violence, the sentencing judge said.

Smith was born and raised in Jamaica but moved to the Cayman Islands as a migrant worker in 2006. He met Taufale when she was on holiday in the Caymans in 2007, an earlier court decision said.

He immigrated to New Zealand in 2009.

They had a son together but the relationship deteriorated, violent incidents occurred, and Taufale ended the relationship.

Smith was asked to return the house key, but he secretly kept a spare.

He let himself in during the day of November 14, 2012, when she and the children were out. He hid in the ceiling for several hours before emerging after 10pm.

He lowered himself to the floor using strapping he had tied to a rafter, and used a gib-knife to attack Taufale in her bedroom.

The delay in going to the Supreme Court was put down to Smith’s illiteracy, limited intellectual ability and learning difficulties making it hard for him to find a lawyer and give instructions for the appeal.