A woman jailed after feeding her abusive husband drugged biscuits before putting him in a freezer has asked a court to overturn her conviction.
Rebecca Payne was sentenced to 16 years in jail in June last year after a jury found her guilty of the murder of Noel Payne, 68, in the regional Victorian town of Walpeup on September 1, 2020.
At trial, Payne had claimed that she had no intention of killing him when she gave him temazepam lemon cookies with a cup of Milo, she just wanted to sedate him for a while.
Mr. Payne’s body was discovered by a neighbor’s son inside the freezer three days later, after Payne asked to temporarily store it on his property.
Handing down a sentence nine years less than the standard sentence for murder, Judge Rita Incerti said Noel Payne had inflicted years of depraved sexual, emotional and physical abuse on his wife.
“The abuse was insidious… You were trapped in an abusive, violent and cruel environment for over a decade,” he said.
“This is a case that cries out for the exercise of the discretion of mercy.”
Payne, now 44, appeared before the Court of Appeal on Friday as his lawyer Veronika Drago filed an appeal against both his murder conviction and his sentence.
Noel Payne’s remains (pictured) were discovered after the neighbor opened the freezer.
Rebecca Payne (pictured) was convicted of murdering her husband last year, but the judge said she had been “trapped in an abusive, violent and cruel environment for more than a decade”.
Drago argued that the conviction was a miscarriage of justice, raising multiple factors in the complex and “extremely distressing” trial that she said had led to an unsafe verdict.
These included testimony from an intellectually disabled woman with an acquired brain injury who Noel Payne moved into his home and also abused.
Drago said the woman had given three different accounts of Payne’s death and that a combination of her vulnerabilities and prosecutorial overreach had “crippled” the defense.
“You get to this stage where the best evidence that can be is neutral and the impact of unfair bias is very high,” he said.
“The question to ask is what chance did Rebecca Payne, the plaintiff, have of getting a fair trial?”
Drago also claimed that prosecutors had made arguments about medical evidence during their closing speech to the jury to which they were not entitled.
The court was told the cause of Mr Payne’s death could not be established and there was limited evidence about the amount of temazepam ingested.
Payne (pictured) was jailed for a minimum of 10 years in June 2023.
The court heard Noel Payne (pictured) had forced Rebecca to tattoo his name all over her body 18 times.
In appealing against the sentence imposed, Ms. Drago said there was no particular sentencing error she could allege, but argued that her client should have received more mercy.
“There were images and videos showing what could only be described as an absolute house of horrors,” he said.
“It is clear from the sentencing observations how depraved and degrading the conduct that took place in that house was…at times it was absolutely incredible, were it not for the fact that there was clearly corroborating evidence.”
In response, Sally Flynn SC said the Crown’s position was that there had been no unfair prejudice against Payne.
He said it was not accepted that the witness had given different accounts, arguing that while there were “internal contradictions”, it was up to the jury to determine her credibility and reliability.
Flynn disputed that the trial prosecutor had exaggerated the medical evidence, read the transcripts and argued that it was the prosecutor who presented to the jury what they should find.
Payne (pictured) is appealing both his conviction and sentence and will currently not be eligible for parole until 2030.
Erik Dobe, also representing the Crown, said Judge Incerti had already granted significant mercy to Payne, imposing a sentence 33 percent less than the standard sentence and a longer period of probation.
“His Honor was the one who heard and saw that evidence firsthand and was in the best position to reach a conclusion about the extent of the impact it should have,” he said.
The court was told there was a partial defense of provocation to a murder charge that could reduce the offense to manslaughter until 2005, when it was withdrawn by parliament.
Judge Terry Forrest said that after reading the evidence he believed a jury could have returned a “10-minute verdict” on provocation.
Justices Forrest, Stephen McLeish and Stephen Kaye reserved their decision on the appeal for a later date.
Payne will be eligible for parole in September 2030 after serving 10 years of his sentence.
