Mum of killed backpacker breaks silence with strong message to daughter's killer
The mother of slain British backpacker Grace Millane - brutally murdered by her Tinder date - broke down as she said she's banished his name from her family's lives.
Gillian Millane said Kempson has "destroyed her family" as he strangled Grace, 22, to death and hid her body in a forest, where it lay undiscovered for eight days. Kempson received a life sentence with a non-parole period of 17 years, after he told his trial he strangled Grace in a hotel while the pair were engaged in consensual "rough sex".
Speaking this week, Gillian said: "I don't think about him, I don't care what happens to him. He came into our life and destroyed our family. I don't care about his name, I don't care about him."
Grace's parents, David and Gillian Millane, are pictured outside Auckland High Court on November 22, 2019 after Kempson was convicted of murder (Getty Images)The mum, from Wickford, Essex, told The Extraordinary Ordinary podcast the trial in 2019 was "horrendous" as she had to sit in a courtroom day after day "while they're annihilating your daughter". Grace, who had only recently graduated from a university course in marketing and advertising, had always dreamt of travelling to places like New Zealand. She was only spending two weeks in New Zealand after a six-week period in South America.
During the initial three-week trial of Kempson, Grace's dad David Millane was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer which spread to his brain with the condition claimed his life in November of the following year.
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"That was another disastrous Christmas and New Year," Gillian, who had survived a bout with breast cancer shortly before Grace's murder. Following the dual deaths, Gillian told the podcast she was "in such a dark, lonely place and I pushed everybody away".
"Trying to find your path on this road of grief is a very difficult thing to do,' she said. "You get to a point when you realise that you're the only one that can get you out of there."
Kempson appears in the dock for his sentencing in February 2020 (Getty Images)Gillian is now heavily involved with charities such as White Ribbon that "raise awareness about the importance of respecting and protecting the rights and safety of individuals". She added: "I can say that my toes are always in the darkness and sometimes my feet and waist but my head is probably more in the sun now."
In October 2020, Kempson was also convicted on eight charges relating to offending against a former partner. The charges included sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, threatening to kill, assault with a weapon and male assault female.
In November 2020, he was convicted on one charge of sexually violating another woman, another British tourist, in an unrelated incident. Kempson received a total sentence of 11 years' imprisonment over the new charges, to be served concurrently with his life sentence.
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