Kaiya Shute and her former boyfriend William Allister Grace lost suppression this week after a years-long battle that continued even after they were both sent to jail.
A young Auckland model jailed over the death of a teenager boasted on social media during the case as she fought to keep her name secret.
The pair were found criminally responsible for the dragging death of 18-year-old Connor Boyd outside an Auckland Central nightclub in 2022
Shute, now in her 20s, didn’t let her persistent bid for permanent name suppression stand in the way of maintaining a TikTok account where she dished out life advice in the style of an aspiring influencer.
And in one video posted just days before a jury found her guilty of manslaughter, Shute sings that she is “bad as f***” as she lies in bed smiling at the camera.
Singing along to Everything Nice by American rapper Dreamdoll, Shute said:
“All of these bitches be mad as f***, why?
“Cause I’m bad as f***.”
Shute and Grace were accused of having grabbed 18-year-old Boyd as they drove away from a CBD club late one night in April 2022.
Boyd was seen on CCTV clinging to the side of Grace’s SUV before falling onto Customs St East outside Saturdays nightclub in Britomart, where the three had earlier crossed paths.
He was taken off life support after suffering unsurvivable head injuries.
Grace, who was driving during the incident, claimed he feared for his and his passengers’ safety after Boyd voiced a threat through the open window and allegedly started throwing punches. Shute, meanwhile, testified that she never grabbed Boyd’s arm and was in shock when her co-defendant did so.
But jurors, who repeatedly watched the horrific CCTV footage of the tumble, didn’t buy the defence and neither did the sentencing judge.
“He was outnumbered by you and your friends and did not demonstrate any physical aggression towards you,” Gault told Shute.
“Were it not for your animus to Mr Boyd through that night, coupled with your assistance to Mr Grace in the vehicle, Mr Boyd’s death would not have resulted.”
Boyd’s father John faced the pair in court at that hearing, during which Shute was sentenced to two years and two months’ jail and Grace to two-and-half years.
“There are no words to describe the infinite pain I feel,” John Boyd said during his emotional victim impact statement.
“I will forever be haunted by this nightmare.”
During her ongoing fight to keep her name secret, Shute’s lawyer – Julie-Anne Kincade KC - said when her client applied for jobs in the future, prospective employers would Google her name and see stories about the case.
Despite that, after her trial had kicked off, Shute posted a video featuring a montage of selfies accompanied by captions of “things I’ve learnt in my 20 years of life”.
They included advice to “switch your mentality from ‘I’m broken and helpless’ to ‘I’m growing and healing’.”
“Sometimes you lose everything and everyone to find yourself,” she wrote.
Comments were turned off on her videos, the most popular of which garnered nearly 3000 views. She did not mention the case or appear to break suppression in her videos.
In other social media profiles, Shute described herself as a hairdresser, makeup artist and model.
Kincade, in arguing in favour of suppression, also argued her client’s youth and “ongoing safety concerns” created extreme hardship. She said social media commentary on the case had frequently referred to her client as a “murderer” even though she was never charged with that offence.
“...We do not consider any likely social media commentary to be of such a level that it will compromise Ms Shute’s clear potential for rehabilitation,” three judges wrote when declining her appeal last month.
Polyfest organisers are blaming the government for not fronting up more cash.