Former detective killed wife in frenzy

A former police officer involved in catching the Rainbow Warrior bombers faces life in prison after admitting killing his wife in a bloody knife attack in April.

David Charles McSweeney stabbed Suzanne McSweeney up to 30 times in the arms and upper body, in what police described as a "frenzied attack" in the offices of the couple's Silverdale textile business.

He is in custody and will be sentenced in the High Court at Auckland on November 28.

Investigators said McSweeney, 54, a former Auckland-based detective sergeant, had a violent relationship with his wife after marrying in 1988.

The couple owned Creative Textiles in Silverdale, north of Auckland, but financial pressures saw them lose equity in both the business and their home.

On April 2 this year the couple had an argument, which ended with 50-year-old Mrs McSweeney leaving their rented Red Beach home to stay with her 72-year-old mother on the North Shore.

She decided to leave McSweeney permanently, and another row ensued when she returned the next day to collect property.

McSweeney was served with a protection order on April 10. But a few days later he contacted his son, Stevan, telling him Mrs McSweeney had "gone too far".

He left instructions for Stevan to see a solicitor about a trust fund McSweeney had set up for him. He then drove to the couple's business in Anvil Rd, Silverdale, walked in the door and killed his wife.

A pathologist's report said Mrs McSweeney was killed with a stab wound to the heart. Her larynx, trachea, jugular vein and carotid artery were all cut in one stab to the neck, probably inflicted as she lay dead, or dying, prosecutors said.

McSweeney attacked his mother-in-law as she tried to help her daughter, then ordered her into a back room. She tried to ring 111, but McSweeney had cut the phone lines, police said.

He then dragged his wife's body in to the office showroom and tried to cover it with carpet and towels.

Police say he spent the next 90 minutes wandering around the property before trying to kill himself. He was later found by his son and police.

The assault on Mrs Radford left her with two cracked ribs and internal bleeding. McSweeney will be sentenced on that charge next month.

McSweeney pleaded guilty to both charges at an unscheduled call-over on September 22, after refusing to appear in court at a hearing on the North Shore on September 11. Judge Barbara Morris described his behaviour at the earlier appearance as bringing an "unseemly practice" into the court.

The Herald approached a former colleague of McSweeney, who served with him in the 1980s, but the man did not want to discuss McSweeney or his offending."He has turned in to a criminal, and that is the stone cold end of it."

McSweeney worked for a time as a private investigator after leaving the police, where he was one of two detectives leading the Crown cases against "Parnell Panther" Mark Stephens.

Stephens was sentenced in 1985 to 12 years' jail for the 1983 rape of a model.

McSweeney also made the news in 1985 as the officer who arrested Major Alain Mafart and Captain Dominique Prieur, the French Secret Services agents who helped mastermind the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland the same year.