Ferdinand Ambach Ferdinand Ambach has lost an appeal against his eight year non-parole sentence for the manslaughter of 69-year-old Ronald Brown, who he bashed to death with banjo before shoving it into his mouth. The Hungarian tourist received a 12 year sentence for the killing, which was deemed manslaughter by a jury which agreed with the now defunct provocation defence. Ambach claims he lost control after Brown, who he had earlier met at a suburban Auckland bar, made sexual advances after inviting him to his home. Brown died in hospital three days later after his life support system was switched off. The Court of Appeal has agreed with the trial judge that Ambach's manslaughter conviction was "close to the murder end of the scale". Ambach claimed the sentence was excessive and said he would have pleaded guilty to manslaughter had he been given the chance. He claimed his lawyer instructed him not to show emotion through the trial. The Court of Appeal has agreed with Justice Helen Winkelman's decision and dismissed the appeal. "We consider no issue can be taken with the starting point adopted by Winkelmann J. Essentially, as the judge said, this was a cruel and brutal crime," Justice Ellen France says in the judgment. "We see no basis for interfering with the judge's assessment that the extreme violence involved called for strong denunciation. An MPI was appropriate to meet that purpose."
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 24th March 2011 - 5:51pm