Coral’s killer to spend at least 17 years in jail

The man who murdered 6-year-old Featherston girl Coral-Ellen Burrows will serve a 17-year non-parole period, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

Steven Williams admitted murdering Coral-Ellen, his stepdaughter, in September last year after a four-day bender using pure methamphetamine.

He was originally sentenced to a 15-year jail term, but the Crown appealed against the sentence.

In a ruling issued yesterday, the Court of Appeal said it had to decide if giving credit for the guilty plea was reason to drop below the 17-year minimum specified in law for the murder of a defenceless child.

The law says the 17-year level can be avoided only if it would be "manifestly unjust".

The three Court of Appeal judges decided that a guilty plea could justify a sentence of less than 17 years, but in such a serious case as Williams' the sentencing judge, Justice John Wild, had got the starting point wrong.

The court said he should have started his sentencing calculation higher, perhaps at 20 years.

Justice Wild had been wrong in believing that a murderous assault on a victim as vulnerable as Coral-Ellen was already taken into account in setting the 17-year minimum.

The judge had then taken off two years to give Williams credit for his guilty plea and remorse.

Though accepting that Williams was "profoundly remorseful", the Court of Appeal said that could not carry great weight because it was more important that the sentence deter and denounce such serious murders.

Williams' lawyer, Val Nisbet, said he was studying the judgment.

- NZPA