Caregiver who killed Paralympian escapes life term

Keith McCormick

A man who slit the throat of a tetraplegic he cared for has escaped the term of life imprisonment normally imposed for murder.

The 12-year jail sentence handed down to Eric Neil Smail, 48, in the High Court at Christchurch yesterday has angered the family of his victim, former Paralympian Keith McCormick.

Smail must serve at least seven years for killing the man he had flatted with, cared for part-time and called his "best mate", instead of the minimum non-parole period of 10 years in a life sentence.

Crown prosecutor Phil Shamy had sought an even greater minimum non-parole period of 17 years, because Mr McCormick was vulnerable, and because Smail had targeted the one area of his body where he had feeling.

"I'm devastated. I thought it was ghastly. I expected he would get 17 years non-parole," Mr McCormick's mother, Dorothy McCormick, told the Weekend Herald. "Everybody that was [in court] for Keith all felt the same."

Justice John Fogarty said Smail had been under a high degree of "accumulated stress" and exercised his discretion to give a lesser sentence.

He told Smail: "The evidence is that you thought you were doing an act of mercy in a way that minimised any awareness that he was about to die and was being killed."

Mr McCormick became a paraplegic in his early 20s when he dived into shallow water to help someone he thought was in trouble. He led an active life, winning medals at the Paralympics, but a second accident in January 2000 left him a tetraplegic, able to move only his neck and head.

This left him totally reliant on carers and his health had deteriorated in recent years. Since November 2004, Smail had been his flatmate and part-time carer.

Based on a psychiatrist's report, Justice Fogarty said the pair had an "extremely close relationship" and had discussed Mr McCormick's future and desire to live. Smail became aware his friend was in considerable pain.

But Justice Fogarty said the evidence did not show Mr McCormick wanted to die or there was any suicide pact.

On the day of the murder, July 28 last year, Smail was off work and had drunk for several hours at bars and told colleagues of his intention to kill Mr McCormick. However no one believed him.

He found Mr McCormick sitting in his wheelchair watching TV and stabbed him six times in the neck before slitting his throat.

Smail then phoned friends and told them what he had done. He stayed at the house until police arrived and said several times: "I murdered my best friend," and "I just killed my best mate."

In a statement read to the court, Mrs McCormick said she never trusted Smail. "It is quite ironic that Keith took more care of Smail than Smail looked after Keith. What right did this man have to make the ... decision to do this to my beloved son."

John Durning, a longtime friend of Smail, said his friend was the kind of person "who took a lot on board".

He believed the sentence was appropriate.

"As Eric has said in the letters to me: He's done the crime, he has to do the time. Being a caregiver, and probably not having the formal training that a person should really have ... it's a lot of stress to put on a person."