The police officer who caught Grace Millane’s killer has revealed the promise he made to her distraught father as the investigation got underway – and the emotional trauma that everyone involved suffered as it went on.
David Beard, whose hard work today saw Jesse Kempson jailed for life for Grace’s murder, said he met with father David Millane on the first day he arrived in New Zealand while she was still officially missing
Beard said he made a simple pledge – to do everything in his power to find her.
Grace Millane (right) was strangled to death by her Tinder date as she backpacked around New Zealand in 2018. Today dad David (left) and mother Gillian (centre) saw her killer jailed for life
David Beard (right), the officer who oversaw the investigation, has spoken out about the impact it had on him – and the promise he made to Grace’s father to do everything to find her
‘Every day he’d come to my office, every day we had a chat, sometimes I went and saw him at the hotel,’ he told the New Zealand Herald.
‘I just saw this really strong man, father figure, head of the family crumbling – and that’s tough.’
Beard also revealed that he spent hours with David after it was confirmed that Grace was dead, following the discovery of her body inside a suitcase buried in the woods.
He said it was important to make sure that David was looked after, because he had been forced to fly across the world without wife Gillian because she was recovering from surgery to treat cancer.
‘It was so emotional . . . his wife’s on the other side of the world with cancer, he’s just been told we’ve found his daughter murdered… yeah, how do you react to that?
‘You’re numb, maybe you’re expecting that at some stage but it still hurts.’
He also described the ‘huge satisfaction’ of being able to give Grace back to her family and provide them with closure, despite the tragic circumstances.
Beard travelled to the UK for Grace’s funeral in January this year, then returned to New Zealand where he was given his own cancer diagnosis – prostate cancer.
His one stipulation while undergoing treatment was that he had to be back at work by November, when Grace’s murder trial started.
He was there to support her parents throughout the long and often-graphic proceedings, as defence lawyers tried to have Kempson acquitted using what has become known as the ‘rough sex defence’.
Jesse Kempson (left) was today jailed for life with a minimum of 17 years after a court heard he strangled Grace (right) to death during sex then buried her body in the woods
Their efforts failed. In November last year he was found guilty of murder, and on Friday he was jailed for life with a minimum of 17 years.
But despite all the emotional ups and downs of the case for everyone involved, Beard insists that it was really about one person: Grace.
‘It has to be about Grace,’ he said. ‘This is about Grace.’
As Kempson was jailed, Grace’s mother Gillian spoke via satellite link to the court, telling him that she is ‘tormented’ at how her daughter ‘died terrified and alone in a room with you’.
She said his ‘barbaric actions’ were ‘beyond comprehension’ and described her anguish over the ‘terror and pain she must have experienced at your hands’.
Justice Simon Moore branded the killer ‘depraved’ as he rejected the defence barrister’s plea that Kempson should be allowed parole after 12 years.
In addition, prosecutors today accused Kempson of ‘re-victimising’ Grace and her family with his failed defence that the 21-year-old Briton had died during rough sex gone wrong.
Jurors rejected that defence last November, when Kempson was found guilty of murder.
Mr Justice Moore told Kempson, who had claimed the killing was accidental in a sex game gone wrong: ‘You are a large and powerful man, she was diminutive. You were in a position of total physical dominance. She trusted you.’
After Kempson was found guilty of Ms Millane’s murder, her father Mr Millane and her mother, Gillian Millane, wept, as did several jurors after the verdict last year
Gillian Millane, appeared in court via video link, and read an emotional victim impact statement, saying her daughter ‘was my friend, my very best friend’ and that the murderer had ‘taken my daughter’s future’
Ms Millane, 21, of Wickford, Essex, met Kempson via Tinder and had returned to his flat after a night out for consensual sex.
In his sentencing remarks, Justice Simon Moore said the attack on the 21-year-old was not pre-meditated or driven by rage, but there was no doubt that Ms Millane was vulnerable.
Justice Moore described the photos Kempson took of Ms Millane’s body as ‘depraved’ and said his actions showed a ‘lack of empathy’.
Speaking outside the court Det Insp Scott Beard said using the defence of rough sex had ‘further victimised the family’.
Kempson, wearing a dark suit, left the dock in silence and showed little emotion as he was led away to begin his prison sentence.
The sentencing remarks came after Ms Millane’s mother Gillian Millane, appeared in court via video link from the family home and read an emotional victim impact statement, saying her daughter ‘was my friend, my very best friend’ and that the murderer had ‘taken my daughter’s future’.
Recalling the moment when her daughter disappeared she said that not knowing where she was left her in ‘agonising pain’, as reported by the NZ Herald.
Speaking directly to her daughter’s killer, who stood in the dock wearing a dark suit with his head in his hands, she said: ‘The terror and pain she must have experienced at your hands, as a mother I would have done anything to change places with her. She died terrified and alone in a room with you.’
She added: ‘The tears I shed are never-ending at the thought of never having the chance to kiss my Grace goodbye.’