Murderer gets further jail sentence for rape

Press, 19 November 1982, Page 12

Murderer gets further jail sentence for rape

PA Auckland A man sentenced to life imprisonment in September for the murder of a woman, aged 77, has been sentenced to a further nine years jail on associated charges of raping- the woman and burgling her flat. Sentencing Tony Tupai, aged 22, of Mount Eden, in the High Court at Auckland, Mr Justice Chilwell was strongly critical of situations in society where liquor was sold to persons who could not cope with it. '■lf there is any person in society who knows he supplied you with liquor when he should not have, I hope he bears some of the pain of the sentence," his Honour told Tupai. During a trial in the High

Court in September a jury was told that on February 18 Tupai had spent 12 hours in Auckland hotels before returning to his flat at Mount Eden and then breaking into the neighbouring flat of Miss Muriel Rose, aged 77. There he had raped and murdered her before taking money and returning to his own flat.

His Honour said there was no doubt that the offences were due, in part, to a drinking problem. “I hope society will one day take due notice of the way some people supply liquor to those who should not have it,” he said. It was sad that an apparently good young man from Western Samoa had come to New Zealand to better his lifestyle and had ended up in

such a situation. His Honour said that the seriousness of the rape fell at the top end of the scale and that the burglary was also a bad instance of its type. For Tupai, Mr J. P. Vuletic said his client felt a deep remorse for what had happened. “Here we have a young man who has never been in trouble before, but because of this country’s attitude to selling liquor he now appears on the two most serious offences we have,” said Mr Vuletic.

Tupai was sentenced to a prison term of nine years on the charge of rape and two years on the charge of burglary. Both terms are concurrent with the life sentence.