Liam Reid to serve minimum 26 years for rapes, Agnew murder

  • Breaking
  • 11/12/2008

Convicted murderer and rapist, Liam Reid, has been sentenced in the Christchurch High Court today to preventive detention with a minimum of 26 years non-parole period.

Reid, 36, was found guilty six weeks ago of the rape and murder of deaf woman Emma Agnew.

He was also convicted for the rape and attempted murder of a 22-year-old woman in Dunedin.

Justice Lester Chisholm described Reid during his sentencing comments as "an evil and dangerous predator".

Reid sat quietly throughout the court proceedings this morning. However, before he was taken away after sentencing, Reid smiled at Judge Lester Chisholm and then bowed to the gallery causing outrage from the people present.

Ms Agnew's suffocated body was found hidden in forest scrub behind the Spencer Park camping ground, 15km northeast of Christchurch.

The profoundly deaf young woman had been missing for 12 days after texting family to say she was planning to meet a man who was interested in buying her car.

Reid's Dunedin victim was walking home in the early hours of the morning when she was attacked in bushes beside a carpark in the central city.

She was punched, choked, threatened and repeatedly raped by Reid.

In his trial Reid gave evidence in his own defence claiming that he had been framed.

After his trial it became public knowledge that Reid was well known to police as a disturbed, violent and sexually depraved offender who was also charged with the abduction, rape and attempted murder of a woman in 2002.

Reid was born Julian Heath Edgecumbe and was abandoned by his parents at the age of three.

He changed his name by deed poll in 2005.
 
3 News / NZPA

source: newshub archive