The man convicted of murdering British backpacker Grace Millane acted “abhorrently” following her death but the trial that found him guilty was flawed, an appeal has heard.
His lawyer Rachael Reed told Court of Appeal judges that she was not seeking to excuse his actions after Ms Millane's death, according to news organisation Stuff.
But she said the judge placed too much weight on those actions in determining the sentence of the man, whose name is being kept secret in New Zealand.
Ms Reed also said the conviction had problems, including questions around the issue of consent, some of the expert evidence, and negative evidence given by other women about his character.
A jury convicted the man of strangling Ms Millane on her 22nd birthday in December 2018 after they met via Tinder.
Ms Millane, from Wickford in Essex, went out for drinks with him before returning to his hotel apartment in central Auckland, where he killed her.
He stuffed her body into a suitcase, drove to a forest and buried it in a shallow grave, where police found it a week later.
Prosecutors argued that he deliberately strangled Ms Millane to death, while the defence claimed she died accidentally after the pair engaged in rough sex that went too far.
The jury found the man guilty of murder and a judge sentenced him to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.
Ms Millane’s death sparked a debate in New Zealand and Britain about reliance on arguments of so-called “rough sex” as a defence for murder.
