Hayden Miles In the wake of the sentencing of a former ‘friend’ of slain teenager Hayden Miles, his family is rejecting the bitter allegations of intolerance and homophobia it’s faced since the gay 15-year-old disappeared last August. Gavin John Gosnell, 27, has been charged with the murder of the Christchurch teenager and will appear at the High Court in Christchurch for a pre-trial hearing later this month. Meanwhile a former ‘friend’ of Hayden’s, 18-year-old Nicolette Vaux-Phillips has been sentenced for to a year’s home detention for being an accessory after the fact to culpable homicide. She failed to intervene or seek help for Hayden as he lay dying, and misled his family over what she knew about his whereabouts. Since Hayden’s original disappearance last August and even after his body was found, other friends have stated they believed members of his family were intolerant about his sexuality, particularly because they opposed tribute videos to the teenager being posted online. Hayden’s uncle says the opposition to the videos was not because of Hayden’s sexuality. “Most of the original videos contained a picture of Hayden with Nicolette Vaux-Phillips, the accessory to his murder, and this was what made the videos so offensive to the family,” he says. “Hayden's poor mother was confronted with tribute videos to her murdered son that contained the image of a person who she knew was the accessory to her son's murder, a person who had covered up the crime for 111 days and had openly lied on Facebook. The pain of seeing that person being portrayed so publicly as a friend in tribute videos over the internet, caused all the family immense pain.” Miles says when the family requested the videos be taken down they were wrongly and publicly pilloried as being bigots. “They were unable to defend themselves or give the true reasons why they wanted the videos removed or at least altered because of the continual name suppression on Nicolette Vaux-Phillips by the justice system.” He says Hayden’s family is like many New Zealand families, “in that it contains people of different sexual orientations and who of course have differing opinions of these matters but the love for each other and an approach of gentle tolerance and understanding binds us all together. “Hayden's murder has forced us into a public role we never wanted or sought but we will do our utmost to try and get justice for Hayden and closure for his family.” A Court suppression order remains in place regarding the circumstances of how Hayden died and what happened afterwards. GayNZ.com Daily News will report from the Christchurch High Court hearing later this month. Did you know Hayden Miles? Do you know Nicolette Vaux-Phillips or Gavin John Gosnell? Email news@gaynz.com
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 31st May 2012 - 12:04pm