'Grace Millane's death could have been avoided'

The murder of British backpacker Grace Millane could have been prevented if police had taken allegations made a year earlier seriously, a victim said.

Jesse Kempson was jailed for murdering Miss Millane in his hotel room in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2018.

In a documentary, a woman said Kempson had threatened to kill her - and she had wanted to press charges.

However, New Zealand Police said there had not been enough evidence "in this case at that time" to prosecute him.

In the TVNZ documentary aired this week, the woman said she met Kempson in 2016 via Tinder, the same dating app he used to meet Miss Millane, from Essex.

She described herself as "young, naive and a hopeless romantic" when she met him and he was "very charismatic, confident" and "held himself in really high regard".

But, she said, his behaviour quickly changed. He was "very violent" towards her, she said, before it escalated to threats to kill her with a knife.

The woman said she gave police a detailed statement and although they said it was a "very violent situation", they said it was "too hard to prosecute because it was 'he said, she said'".

As a result, no charges were brought in 2017, although New Zealand Police confirmed she was granted both a protection order and a property order.

The New Zealand force told the BBC it had "initially received a report relating to physical violence" but did not take the case any further due to a lack of evidence.

"For any criminal complaint police must meet a certain threshold of evidence under the Solicitor-General's Guidelines for Prosecution before proceeding with a prosecution," a spokesman said.

He added: "In this case at that time, based on available information, the level of evidential sufficiency would not have been sufficient enough for police to proceed with a prosecution.

"However, when the complaint of a sexual nature was made at a later stage, this was investigated by police and ultimately resulted in a prosecution commencing."

Eighteen months later, however, the woman said her "whole world came crashing down" when she discovered Kempson was the man charged with murdering Miss Millane.

"Jesse's trajectory of where he was headed, and his journey in life, was always going to end up the way it was but it could have been avoided if they had taken me seriously," the woman said.

Police revisited the woman's case after Miss Millane's murder, and Kempson was convicted of offences against her and another woman in December 2020.

He was back in court this month appealing those convictions, TVNZ said.

Kempson is serving a minimum of 17 years for murdering Miss Millane, from Wickford, who was in Auckland as part of a round-the-world trip.

He murdered Miss Millane by strangling her in a hotel in Auckland, having met her via Tinder on the day before her 22nd birthday on 1 December 2018.

He was convicted in November 2019.

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