Accused in shock guilty plea to rape and murder of French student Sophie Collombet
BENJAMIN Milward has made a shock guilty plea to the rape and murder of French student Sophie Collombet. His mum says he “deserves to be punished”.
BENJAMIN Milward has told his mother he deserves whatever is coming to him for the rape and murder of French student Sophie Collombet, as she warned of the dangers of the drug “ice”.
Two weeks before he was to stand trial, Milward yesterday pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court in Brisbane over the horrific attack on Ms Collombet as she walked home in March 2014.
The rare plea of guilty to a murder charge follows a swift but meticulous police investigation into a crime that provoked an outpouring of public grief and outrage.
Quick-thinking detectives were on Milward’s doorstep just hours after Ms Collombet’s body was discovered in a rotunda near Kurilpa Bridge in South Brisbane.
Deciding to check the nearby Ozcare hostel a few blocks away, officers discovered Milward was missing after failing to return home by curfew on the night of the murder.
The hostel houses convicted sex offenders and others on parole, despite being located a short distance from one of the city’s busiest tourist and entertainment precincts.
Witnesses soon told police that Milward twice injected the drug ice on the day of the murder, and had been drinking in the rotunda where her body was found.
He had previously been jailed for a year for serious assault and had been convicted of a string of other offences, such as stealing and causing a public nuisance.
On the day of her murder, Ms Collombet, 21, a business student, had been at Griffith University and had declined a classmate’s offer of a lift home. Instead, she caught a bus to the Cultural Centre terminal and walked along the Brisbane River towards her apartment about 9pm. An area that might normally have been full of people was deserted because of a storm that brought heavy rain.
A jogger discovered her body the next morning.
She was naked and had been covered in newspapers and a jacket.
DNA recovered from under Ms Collombet’s fingernails was found to be 1.1 million times more likely to have come from Milward than not.
His mother Diane Milward yesterday said he had pleaded guilty ahead of his trial because he was “sorry about everything”.
“He knows he deserves whatever is coming to him,” Ms Milward told The Courier-Mail. “He’s done a horrible thing and he deserves to be punished for it.
“I know people probably won’t believe this, but he’s so remorseful and devastated by what’s happened and he’s ready to accept whatever happens.”
Ms Milward was continuing to support her son, visiting him in the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre every two weeks.
“Why did he do it? The drugs, absolutely,” she said.
A conviction for murder carries a mandatory life sentence, with a minimum non-parole period of 20 years’ imprisonment.
Dressed in an untucked long-sleeve shirt and long pants, Milward showed no emotion and spoke only when asked how he pleaded to charges of rape and murder. “Guilty,” he replied to each.
A man believed to be Ms Collombet’s 27-year-old brother sat in the public gallery but declined to comment.
Justice Ann Lyons said she would sentence Milward on October 26.
Originally published as Accused in shock guilty plea to rape and murder of French student Sophie Collombet