{"id":289367,"date":"2026-02-18T04:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T04:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/289367\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T04:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T04:24:12","slug":"former-prison-guards-murder-conviction-appeal-to-be-heard-in-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/289367\/","title":{"rendered":"Former prison guard’s murder conviction appeal to be heard in November"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former prison guard who murdered his childhood friend will have his appeal against conviction and sentence heard later this year.<\/p>\n

By Sam Sherwood of RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n

David Benbow was sentenced in 2024<\/a> to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years after a jury found him guilty of murdering Michael McGrath.<\/p>\n

McGrath was last seen alive in May 2017. Two years later, Benbow was charged with his murder – accused of fatally shooting his childhood friend.<\/p>\n

Neither the gun, nor McGrath’s body, have been found despite extensive searches.<\/p>\n

After his first trial, the jury was unable to reach a verdict. At his second trial, he was found guilty of murder.<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeal confirmed to RNZ a hearing date for Benbow’s appeal on conviction and sentence had been set for November 9 and 10.<\/p>\n

McGrath’s brother, Simon McGrath, told RNZ Benbow continued to show a “disturbing lack of empathy and remorse despite the clinically clear weight of evidence against him that has resulted in his unanimous murder conviction”.<\/p>\n

At sentencing, Justice Jonathan Eaton described the murder as an execution style killing.<\/p>\n

He said the high level of planning, including the fact that McGrath’s body has never been found, added to the length of the sentence.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Michael McGrath (inset) was last seen alive in May 2017. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

During the Christchurch High Court trial, the prosecution said that Benbow killed McGrath after learning that he was in a relationship with Benbow’s ex-partner of 17 years, Joanne Green.<\/p>\n

McGrath’s mother, Adrienne McGrath, said she could not believe her son would never come home again.<\/p>\n

In her victim impact statement, she said she still laid in bed some nights and hoped her son would come knocking at her window.<\/p>\n

“I’ll never forget that first night when I realised that Michael was missing. That memory will haunt me forever.<\/p>\n

“I still experience the pain of losing him every day, especially when I see or hear things that remind me of him.”<\/p>\n

McGrath’s brother Simon, speaking after the guilty verdict, said the family still wanted to know where his brother’s body was.<\/p>\n

Simon said he hoped the government considered legislative changes to stop killers who do not co-operate with police being eligible for parole.<\/p>\n

“I believe New Zealand needs to strengthen the law to follow … what’s in many Australian states – no body, no parole.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former prison guard who murdered his childhood friend will have his appeal against conviction and sentence heard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[158,67,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-289367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-christchurch-canterbury","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}