New court documents reveal why South Auckland prison inmate Donovan Duff killed again

• Donovan Michael Duff pleaded guilty to stabbing two inmates, killing Brian Kenneth George at Auckland South Corrections Facility.
• Duff used a 20cm chef’s knife, stabbing George six times and another inmate once.
• Duff, already serving a life sentence for murdering his daughter, revealed his motive in a recorded call from prison.

A Waikato man already serving a lengthy prison sentence in Auckland for the murder of his baby daughter says he “just f***ing lost it” and stabbed two fellow inmates - one fatally - because he was tired of “mean people” calling him a “kid killer”.

Patched Mongrel Mob member Donovan Michael Duff’s name and details of his latest homicide, including his motive, were revealed for the first time today after he pleaded guilty to the stabbings.

Murder victim Brian Kenneth George died at Auckland South Corrections Facility in Wiri on the morning of December 21 last year, within minutes of suffering six stab wounds with a large chef’s knife that Duff - a vegetarian cook at the facility - had recently signed out.

The knife, which had a 20cm blade, had punctured George’s heart and the tip of his lung.

Donovan Michael Duff, who was found guilty in the High Court at Rotorua in 2018 of murdering his baby daughter, has pleaded guilty in the High Court at Auckland to the 2023 murder of fellow inmate Brian George at Auckland South Corrections Facility. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Another inmate suffered a single stab wound to the abdomen so deep it almost went completely through his body. He required emergency surgery but survived.

The killing was caught on CCTV and staff at the privately-operated prison immediately responded.

Duff, 48, declined to speak to authorities about the incident, but he was less guarded the following day during a phone call from prison to his partner.

“That c*** gets to call me a kid killer and f***ing get away with it,” he told his partner, adding that it was especially galling when other child abusers got on his case.

“I’ll f*** any c*** that’s f***ing call me that...

“I’ve been f***ing hearing this shit, hearing this shit that’s f***ing coming out of mean people’s f***ing mouths but I can’t quite f***ing pinpoint who it was actually coming from. And then when I see the words come out of this c***’s mouth, I just seen red.”

All prison calls are recorded and the conversation was passed on to police.

Caught on tape

The newly released court documents also give a blow-by-blow of how the attacks occurred.

According to the agreed summary of facts, Duff had reported for duty in the kitchen - where about 40 prisoners worked, including the two victims - and signed out the knife at 10.55am.

George and convicted drug dealer Po-Chen Chien were sitting on plastic milk crates in a loading bay, waiting for a prison officer to open external doors so they could transfer food between fridges.

Duff briefly approached the entry to the same area at 11.20am before turning around and walking back to the main kitchen. When he returned one minute later, he went directly to Chien and stabbed him once.

Donovan Duff.

“The defendant remained in front of Mr Chien and stood in a confrontational stance with the knife still in his right hand,” the agreed summary of facts states.

Duff then turned around and appeared as if he was about to leave before changing his mind. He instead approached George and inflicted the six stab wounds.

“Mr George was still sitting on the milk crate, and the first stab was to his lower left abdomen,” court documents state.

“Mr George put his arm around his stomach and attempted to move backwards to get away from the defendant, however, he was unable to get away as there were crates both behind him and to his right and the defendant was blocking the only exit.

“The defendant then immediately stabbed him to the abdomen again. Mr George tried to block the defendant and curl inwards to protect his torso. The defendant used his left hand to push Mr George’s head back and stabbed him a further four times, including to the chest, while Mr George attempted to block the attack with his hands.”

The defendant, who then placed the knife in his pants pocket as he returned to the kitchen, was described by authorities as having “acted calmly but deliberately” throughout the attack.

George activated an emergency button on the loading bay wall, yelling out, “Help! Help!”

Donovan Michael Duff, who was found guilty in the High Court at Rotorua in 2018 of murdering his baby daughter, has pleaded guilty in the High Court at Auckland to the 2023 murder of fellow inmate Brian George at Auckland South Corrections Facility. Photo / Jason Oxenham

“It was him,” he was reported to have said as he pointed a bloody hand at Duff, before collapsing.

Chien, meanwhile, slid against a wall into a sitting position.

“He could see his bowel spilling out from the wound to his abdomen and was terrified,” court documents state, adding that he also suffered a collapsed lung and significant blood loss.

“He thought he may not survive.”

Staff nurses raced to help George and administered CPR, but he was pronounced dead at 11.42am.

A history of killing

Duff’s appearance via audio-video feed in the High Court at Auckland today before Justice Mathew Downs came six years after the same judge had sentenced him in the High Court at Rotorua to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of at least 17 years.

That sentencing was for the beating death in 2016 of his 9-month-old daughter Maija at their Tūrangi, Waikato home.

He insisted during his Rotorua trial that he didn’t know how the baby received the injuries. But prosecutors said he was the only caregiver at home with the baby when she suffered injuries so severe they were compared to being kicked in the head by a horse.

Donovan Duff during his 2018 murder trial. Photo / File

During the previous sentencing, Justice Downs outlined Duff’s long history of violence, which included breaking his former partner’s pelvis during a hammer attack, presenting a firearm at a law enforcement officer, aggravated robbery and other assault and wounding convictions.

A cultural report outlined how he went from dealing methamphetamine to becoming an addict. He had taken a violence prevention programme in prison prior to killing his daughter, but had trouble applying the lessons in the outside world, the report noted.

He had a deprived childhood, resulting in anger issues and a lack of empathy for others, the report writer said, adding that it led to his recruitment in the Mongrel Mob – a gang whose “ethos has been to invert what would be normally acceptable and turn social failure into perverse achievement”.

Duff had been scheduled to go to trial for the prison murder charge in March 2025. That trial was vacated today - a sentencing hearing for next June replacing it.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.

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