Grace Millane murder trial: Accused admitted she was dead in second police interview

Warning: Contains graphic and sexual content.

The man accused of murdering Grace Millane broke down during a second interview with police and admitted his Tinder date was dead and he had disposed of her body.

The jury in the High Court at Auckland is watching the videotaped interview conducted on December 8 - a week after Millane went missing.

The accused's second interview with police on December 8.

Crown prosecutors allege that on the night of December 1 last year - the eve of Millane's 22nd birthday - the accused strangled her to death in his CityLife hotel apartment.

The Herald brings you the latest updates from the courtroom today:

(The trial has paused for the lunch break)

12.40pm

Dr Samuel Rawlings conducted a medical exam of the accused at 11pm on December 8.

After recording his medical history, Rawlings said he noticed two bruises on the accused's chest and right shoulder.

There were also five small scratches, which "appeared to be reasonably well healed", on his left hand.

'I want her family to know that it wasn't intentional'

12.20pm

As the video interview continues, Detective Ewen Settle asked the accused where Millane's possessions were.

The alleged murderer said he had dumped "everything" in a rubbish bin in Auckland's Albert Park.

"Everything that was in the room," he said.

Settle asked: "Presumably her telephone is in her property in the rubbish bin?"

"Yep," the accused replied.

The detective also asked if the accused was currently employed.

"Nah," he said.

"When did your employment end?"

"Friday," the accused said, referring to the day he matched with Millane on the dating app Tinder.

Settle then mentioned he had evidence of a text conversation between Millane and her friend Ameena Ashcroft from the night of December 1.

The accused claimed he told Millane he was a sales manager.

However, in Millane's messages to Ashcroft the accused appears to have mentioned he is an oil company executive.

"Me? No," the accused said. "My uncle works in an oil company."

Settle asked: "Which oil company does he work for?"

The accused replied: "I don't know."

After a break, Settle returns to the interview room and asks if Millane had any injuries.

"Did you inflict any injuries on her?"

The accused replies no.

"Did you kill Grace Millane?"

"No," he said.

"You're under arrest for the murder of Grace Millane," Settle says, before reading him his rights.

In the room is also the accused's legal counsel Ian Brookie.

He asked his client if Millane died while she was in his company.

"Yes," he said.

"Did you intend to cause her death?" Brookie continues.

"No."

Brookie also asks why he is now telling the police this version of events.

"Because I want her family to know that it wasn't intentional," he said.

"But I also want her family to have closure and the other night when I was questioned by police I was still shocked and I apologise for misleading. So yeah, it's basically so her family understand that it wasn't an intentional thing."

'I'm sorry': Accused told police he started dialling 111

11.30am

When asked by Detective Ewen Settle why he didn't call for an ambulance the accused said he "dialled 111".

"But I didn't hit the button because I was scared at how bad it looked," he said.

"There's a dead person in my room, I thought it looked terrible. Waking up to it I was like 'holy sh*t'."

11.15am

After breaking down in tears and taking a break, the accused then described in the police interview what he did after realising Millane was dead.

"I was in shock, I didn't know what to do," he said.

"I took a whole heap of tablets that I had. I realised she wasn't alive and I just wanted to end it all."

The accused said he was "all over the place".

"I didn't believe what had happened," he said. "I was just terrified and scared."

The accused then confessed he went to The Warehouse on Elliot St in central Auckland and bought a suitcase - something he had previously denied.

"I went back and at first I didn't know what to do," he said, talking about returning to his CityLife apartment.

"I just put the suitcase on the bed. And I think I left again."

The accused then said he tried to overdose on medication.

"I just was thinking that me and Grace had such a great night, we were talking about catching up in London.

"I was at the point where I just wanted to end my own life - I'd had enough, I was finished."

The accused then recalled putting Millane's body in the suitcase.

"I was just in shock the whole time I couldn't put her in it because it just didn't seem right. It just didn't seem right.

"So I left and Grace was half-in half-out of the suitcase at that stage. I couldn't do it."

At this point in the video, the 27-year-old man leans forward in the dock and puts his head in his hands.

The accused at his second police interview with Detective Ewen Settle.

The accused said he then left to buy cleaning products - which was captured on CCTV.

"Then I remember coming back and I messaged a friend to catch up because I didn't think it was real," he said.

That "friend" was another Tinder date he went on in Ponsonby on December 2.

"I couldn't get through the beer I was drinking," he said.

"I got back to CityLife and ... I spewed up a few times because I couldn't put Grace in the bag. All I could think about was what we shared the night before.

"And then I put her in the bag. And the whole time I just kept saying I'm sorry," he said crying.

In the dock, the accused kept his head down, sniffed and blew his nose.

The accused then recalled moving Millane's body on a luggage trolley from the hotel and into a rental car.

"I sat there for a little while, praying," he said, after parking the car in a nearby parking building.

The accused bought a shovel at an ITM hardware store in Kumeu.

The next morning he drove to a hardware store in West Auckland and bought a shovel before continuing to the Waitakere Ranges.

"I went into the bush ... And I start digging."

The accused said he again took "20 maybe 30 paracetamol tablets".

"Because I didn't want to be around if Grace wasn't there and didn't think I deserved to be around because of what happened.

"I went and got the suitcase and put it in the hole, and covered the hole and then I drove 10-20 metres to the reservoir and sat there. I sat there just wanting the paracetamol to kick in, it didn't, so I drove back to the city."

In the courtroom, the accused didn't look up again until he tells the detective he drove the rental car out west and cleaned it.

Throughout the video, the accused has been reading the transcript in the dock and fiddled with his pen, but has generally looked calm.

11.00am

The jury is watching the second police interview between the accused and Detective Ewen Settle.

"Tell me what happened last Saturday," Settle said.

"From the beginning?" the accused asked.

The alleged murderer then went through the events of December 1 - as have been captured and match the events on CCTV.

These included them meeting at SkyCity and visiting three bars to drink together.

After drinking at the Bluestone Room, the accused says the pair returned to his room at the CityLife hotel.

"We were kissing, we were talking," he said. "She asked me to turn the TV off. I had the TV on the music channel."

Then, the accused claims, Millane began talking about 50 Shades of Grey.

"She told me that there's a few things she likes doing and that she'd done with her ex-partner.

"We started having sex, at first it was just normal. It was very placid."

Then, the accused said, Millane brought up the topic of bondage.

"And she started biting and she asked me to bite her so I did," he said.

"I stopped at first and said 'is this something you really want to do?'"

The accused claimed Millane said: "We're in the moment, let's just go with it."

The alleged killer said the pair talked for a while before having sex again.

"Holding my arms above my head and just biting and then she hit my butt ... and then she held me around my neck and pushed down.

"She indicated that it made me harder ... And so we swapped over, I got on top.

"We started having more, I guess, violent sex."

The accused said the pair "ended up on the floor" before Millane took nude photos of him and he did the same.

"And then we kept going she told me to hold her arms tighter," he said. "And then she told me to hold her throat and go harder."

The accused said he then went to the bathroom - but fell asleep in the shower.

He remembered waking up when it was still dark and crawled back into the bed.

"I thought Grace had left," he said.

"I woke up the next day and saw that she was lying on the floor, I saw that she had blood coming from her nose.

"I screamed, I yelled out at her. I tried to move her to see if she was awake."

The accused, however, said the room was also "pitch black".

'His eyes were creepy looking, they are rather intimidating'

10.15am

This morning's evidence has started with a central Auckland pharmacist talking about her interaction with the accused on December 3.

In a statement read to the court, Eliana Golberstein said the alleged murderer came into the store at about 3.40pm and was "behaving oddly".

She said he was "standing there weirdly looking at the cameras and playing with his hands".

Golberstein said the accused informed her he had a bad allergy and had hives on his hands.

"I noticed he was not speaking to my face or looking at my eyes," her statement read, adding there were red marks between his fingers and on the back of his hands.

"His eyes were creepy looking, they are rather intimidating," Golberstein said.

She prescribed antihistamines.

After seeing the accused's name published in overseas media in stories about the disappearance of Millane "it triggered me to come in and talk to police".

Accused's Tinder date after Grace's death

The somewhat notorious hills in the city's west were mentioned by the accused during a Tinder date at a Ponsonby bar during the afternoon of December 2 - just hours after Millane died.

The accused's date recalled her rendezvous with the alleged murderer for the Auckland court yesterday.

She said the accused mentioned all his mates were police officers and that he was "trying to find a really large duffel bag".

He then began regaling a story about a man who accidentally killed a woman during rough sex and was later convicted of manslaughter, the woman said.

"It's crazy how guys can make one wrong move and go to jail for the rest of their life," the accused allegedly told her.

The accused met with another Tinder date after Grace's death at Ponsonby bar Revelry.

The accused, the court has heard, claims Millane died as a result of sexual misadventure between the pair.

His Tinder date said the accused appeared "very intense" when telling the story but also "seemed to have empathy with this man".

He then mentioned police were "having a really tough time out in the Waitākeres", she said.

"There are a lot of bodies going missing in the Waitākeres," the accused supposedly said.

The alleged killer also told her police dogs could only smell bodies if they were buried 4 feet or less underground, she told the court.

"I thought it was an unusual thing to say on a date but people say strange things on dates," the woman said.

Millane met the accused on a Tinder date.

CCTV footage of the accused's movements before the date were also played to the court.

At 8am on December 2, he is seen leaving his apartment and walking to The Warehouse on Elliot St in central Auckland.

He buys a large suitcase there and later visits a nearby supermarket where he buys several items, including Janola power cleaner, gloves, and a packet of gum.

Later that morning he rents a small red car for 24 hours.

The Crown says the accused transported Grace's body in a suitcase.

After his Ponsonby date, CCTV shows him preparing to dispose of Millane's body.

At about 9.27pm he is seen pushing a luggage trolley with two large suitcases and a black sports bag from his room to the rental car.

Millane's parents seated in the back of the courtroom, David and Gillian Millane, were audibly upset as they saw the suitcase containing their daughter's body being moved.

After leaving the car in a carpark overnight, the accused begins his journey to Scenic Drive in the Waitākere Ranges at 6.14am on December 3. However, he stops at an ITM hardware store on the way and buys a red shovel.

By 9.30am the accused returns to CityLife - CCTV shows he is barefoot.

Later on December 3, the accused visits and returns to a dry-cleaner's and drives to another Warehouse at the St Lukes shopping centre where he buys a second large suitcase.

While in St Lukes, he makes the short drive to Washworld, a self-service vehicle wash station where he spends about 15 minutes cleaning the rental car.

CCTV shows him also calmly leaving the red shovel leaning against a wall before driving away.

By December 5 the accused is considered a person of interest and is contacted by police.

Later that day, however, he can be seen on CCTV walking into Albert Park in central Auckland carrying a sports bag.

He removes some items from his bag and dumps them in a trash bin.

The next day - December 6 - police sit him down and conduct a formal video interview.

This interview, by Detective Ewen Settle, has also been played to the jury.

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