Ferdinand Ambach's appearance in court to be sentenced for the manslaughter of an elderly gay Onehunga man has been delayed until September 18th. No advance notice or reason for the delay was given by the court as to why today's scheduled sentencing was postponed. Ambach, a Hungarian tourist who had been in the country only six weeks, was found guilty in July of the December 2007 killing of Ronald Brown. Brown, 69, allegedly made sexual advances to Ambach which resulted in him being brutally beaten and left do die with the broken neck of a banjo shoved in his mouth. Ambach, then 30, faced a charge of murder but successfully used the 'gay panic' defence to argue to a jury that his bludgeoning of the elderly man and trashing of his home was an understandable reaction to an alleged unwanted sexual advance. The verdict was the lesser finding of manslaughter Gay panic defence, more formally known as the partial defence of provocation provision in the Crimes Act, looks set to be struck from the statutes with a Bill for its removal currently before Parliament and attracting widespread support.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 27th August 2009 - 11:27am