Gavin Gosnell Gavin Gosnell has been jailed for 18 years for the murder and dismemberment of gay teenager Hayden Miles. Gosnell, 28, was convicted by a jury in April of the murder of the 15-year-old, in a prolonged assault at a Christchurch flat. He then cut his body into pieces with a jigsaw and dumped his remains. Outside court, a tearful Jacqui Miles held up a photo of her son, saying, "This is for you Hayden. We did it. Eighteen years," she said. Miles' aunty Sandy Ward added:"No sentence will ever be enough for the inhumane, disturbing and cruel way in which Hayden's life was taken from him." "Our family can now concentrate on rebuilding our lives to some sort of normality, and focus on the loving memories we have of our Hayden." Earlier, Gosnell read a statement to the court saying that he wanted to appeal against his conviction because he believed there had been a miscarriage of justice and he had been unjustly convicted of murder. He said he took responsibility for assaulting Hayden and dismembering his body, but he could not take responsibility for his death or his murder. "I made a wrong decision that night and the following morning, and I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life. "I'm disgusted in myself for desecrating his body." Gosnell dismissed his defence lawyer, whom he almost totally ignored while the lawyer argued his case in the trial, and was allowed by the judge to represent himself in court today.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 5th June 2013 - 12:31pm